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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



D'AUBIGNE, 



AND 



HIS WRITINGS 



PRIOR TO HIS 



HISTORY OP THE REFORMATION. 



D'AUBIGNl 



AND 



HIS WRITINGS 



WITH A SKETCH OP THE 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR/ 



BY 



REV. ROBERT BAIRD, D.D, 



& ' 




NEW YORK: 
BAKER AND SCRIBNER, 

145 NASSAU STREET. 







•>w » 



1&R&5 
.WH-5 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1846, fry 

BAKER & SCRIBNER, 

in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of 

New York. 






S. W. BENEDICT, 
3ter. & Print., 16 Spruce Street. 



* • . Si 



• 



\ 



t % 



J. H. MEELE D'AUBIGNE, 

BY 
REV. ROBERT BAIRD, D.D. 



In compliance with the request of many friends, who desire to 
know something of the family, life, character, and literary labors 
of the Rev. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, author of the celebrated 
" History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century," I fur- 
nish the brief memoir which follows, 

John Henry Merle (or, as he is called in England and this 
country, Merle oVAubigne) was born in the city of Geneva, in 
the year 1794. Consequently he is a little more than forty- 
eight years of age. 

Although a Swiss by birth, Dr. Merle is of French origin. 
His family, like that of many of the inhabitants of Geneva, is 
descended from Huguenot ancestors, who were compelled to leave 
their native country because of their religion, and to take refuge 
in a city upon which one of their countrymen, John Calvin, had 
been the instrument, under God, of conferring the blessings of the 
Reformation. 

The great-grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Merle d'Aubign6, on 
his paternal side, was John Lewis Merle , of Nismes. About the 
epoch of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), this 
worthy man, who was a sincere Protestant, fled from his country, 
and took refuge in Switzerland, in order to enjoy the religious 
liberty which France, under the rule of Louis XIV., denied him. 

His son, Francis Merle, married, in the year 1743, Elizabeth, 
the daughter of a Protestant nobleman, residing in Geneva, whose 
name was George d' Aubigne. Agreeably to a usage which 
exists at Geneva, and, I believe, in many other portions of 
Switzerland, by which a gentleman adds the name of his wife to 



XIV LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 

his own, in order to distinguish him from other persons of the 
same name, Mr. Francis Merle appended that of d'Aubigne to 
his own, an^ was known as Francis Merle d'Aubigne. Since 
his day, the family have retained the name of Merle d'Aubigne. 
At least this was the case with the son of Francis Merle, — the 
father of our author,— as well as w r ith our author himself. 

George d'Aubigne, just mentioned, whose daughter Elizabeth 
became the wife of Francis Merle, w T as a descendant of Theodore 
Agrippa d'Aubigne, who left France, in the year 1620, on 
account of religious persecution. This Theodore Agrippa 
d'Aubigne was no common man. The old chroniclers call him 
un Calviniste zele, si oneques il en Jut ; u a zealous Calvinist, if 
there ever was one." He bought the domain of Lods, near 
Geneva, on which he built the Chateau of Crest, which still re- 
mains. The old Huguenot warrior handled the pen and the lyre 
as well as the sword ; and his Tragiques, a poem full of life and 
genius, drew a vivid picture of the court of the imbecile Henry 
III. of France, and his infamous mother, Catharine de Medici. 
His Histoire Universelle de la Jin du 16me Steele had the honor 
of being publicly burnt at Paris, in the year 1620, by order of 
Louis XIII. He wrote also the Confession de Saucy, and 
several other works. It is related of him, that, at the age of 
eight years, he knew well both the Latin and the Greek lan- 
guages. At the age of fourteen, he went to Geneva, to finish 
his studies in the " Academy," or University, of that city. 
Having completed his course in that Institution, he returned to 
France ; whence, as has been stated, he was compelled to fly, 
in the year 1620. Upon establishing himself at Geneva, he be- 
came allied, by marriage, with the families of the Burlamachi 
and Calandrini, two of the most honorable families in that city, 
both of Italian origin ; for Geneva was a " City of refuge" to per- 
secuted and exiled Protestants of Italy as well as of France. 

Francis Merle d'Aubigne had many children, one of whom, 
Amie Robert Merle d'Aubigne, was born in 1755, and was the 
father of three sons ; the oldest and the youngest of whom are 
respectable merchants in this country — the former in New York, 
and the latter in New Orleans — and the second is the Rev. Dr. 
Merle d'Aubigne, the subject of this notiee. Amie Robert 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XV 

Merle d'Aubigne had a strong desire in his early years to con- 
secrate his life wholly to the service of his God ; and his parents 
allowed him to pursue the studies requisite for the right discharge 
of the office of the ministry of the gospel. But on his father's 
death, his uncle and guardian, " par un caprice qui jit le malheur * 
de majeunesse"* (as he says in his memoir, written for his oldest 
son, William), caused him to give up his studies and embrace 
other pursuits. 

The end of this excellent man was truly tragical and deplor- 
able. In the year 1799 he went on an important commercial 
mission, to Constantinople and Vienna. On his return from the 
latter city to Geneva, through Switzerland, in the autumn of that 
year, he was met on the road, near Zurich, by the savage and in- 
furiated hordes of Russians, who had been recently defeated by 
the French forces under the command of Massena, and by them 
was cruelly murdered ! 

His widow, who is still living in Geneva, in a vigorous old 
age, devoted all the energies of an active and enlightened mind 
to the care of her fatherless children ; aud now daily thanks God 
for having supplied her with the means of giving them a liberal 
education. 

The preceding paragraphs will suffice to give the reader some 
knowledge of the ancestors of the subject of this biographical 
sketch. 

The Rev. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne was educated in the " Aca- 
demy" — or, as it is more commonly called by strangers, the 
University — of his native city. After having completed the 
course of studies in the Faculties of Letters and Philosophy, he 
entered that of Theology. I am not certain as to the time when 
he finished his preparations for the ministry ; but believe that it 
was about the year 1816. 

The Theological Faculty in the Academy of Geneva, when 
Dr. Merle d'Aubigne was a student, was wholly Socinian in its 
character. Whatever were the shades of difference in regard to 
doctrine, which prevailed among its professors, they all agreed in 
rejecting the proper divinity of the Saviour and of the Holy 
Spirit, salvation through the expiatory death and intercession of 
* Through a caprice which rendered my youth miserable. 



XVi LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 

the former, and regeneration and sanctification by the influences 
of the latter. With these cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, 
others which are considered by all Evangelical Christians to be 
fundamental in the system of their Faith, were also renounced. 
Alas, the same state of things exists at this day, in the School 
which Calvin founded, and in which that great man, as well as 
Beza, Francis Turrettin, Pictet, and other renowned men taught 
the youth, who gathered around them, the glorious doctrines of 
the Gospel and the Reformation. 

It was under such instruction that Dr. Merle pursued his 
studies for the sacred ministry. But it pleased God to send a 
faithful servant to Geneva about the time that he was com- 
pleting his theological training. This was Mr. Haldane, of Edin- 
burgh, a wealthy and zealous Christian, who still protracts a long 
and useful life, which has been spent in the service of his Mas- 
ter. This excellent man, deploring the errors which prevailed 
in the theological department of the Academy, endeavored to do 
what he could, during the sojourn of a winter, to counteract 
them. For this purpose, he invited a number of young men to 
his rooms in the hotel in which he lodged, and there, by means 
of an interpreter at first, he endeavored to teach them the glori- 
ous Gospel. In doing this, he commented on the Epistle to the 
Romans, at much length. God blessed his efforts to the salvation 
of some ten on twelve of them. 

Seldom has it happened that an equal number of young men 
have been converted about the same time, and in one place, 
who have been called to perform so important a part in building 
up the kingdom of Christ. One of these men was the excellent 
Felix Neff, of blessed memory. Another was the late Henry 
Pyt. The greater part of them, however, still live to adorn and 
bless the Church in France and Switzerland. But none of them 
have become more celebrated than the subject of this notice. 

Not long after his ordination, Dr. Merle set out for Germany, 
where he spent a number of months, chiefly at Berlin. On his 
way to that city, he passed through Eisenach, and visited the 
Castle of Warburg, in the vicinity, famous for the retreat, if not 
properly the imprisonment, of Luther. It was whilst gazing at 
the walls of the room which the great Reformer had occupied, 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XV11 

that the thought of writing the " History of the Reformation" 
entered his mind, never to abandon it till its realization should 
put the world in possession of the immortal work whose existence 
may be said to date from that day. 

From Berlin, Dr. Merle was called to Hamburgh, to preach 
to an interesting French Protestant Church, which had been 
planted by pious Huguenots, when compelled to leave France, 
upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and which has 
been continued by their descendants. In that city he spent five 
years, diligently employing his time in amassing information on 
the great subject upon which he had resolved to write. 

From Hamburgh he was invited to Brussels by the late king 
of Holland, to preach in a chapel which he had erected in that 
capital, for Protestants who spoke the French language. At 
that time, and down till 1830, Belgium (of which Brussels is 
the capital) was united to Holland, and formed a portion of the 
kingdom of the Netherlands* 

In the year 1830, a Revolution took place in Belgium, occa- 
sioned as much by religious as by political causes. The priests, 
in order to deliver the country from the Protestant influence 
which a union with Holland diffused in it, joined De Potter and 
the other " patriots" in their revolutionary measures. The en- 
terprise succeeded. The Dutch were driven out ; and all who 
were considered friendly to the king, or intimately connected 
with him, were in no little danger. Among those who were* in 
this predicament was Dr. Merle. At no small risk of his life, 
he escaped from Belgium to Holland, where he spent a short 
time, and thence went to his native city. 

The return of Dr. Merle to Geneva was most opportune. 
The friends of the Truth had been steadily increasing in number 
since the year 1816, and had begun to think seriously of found- 
ing an orthodox School of Theology, in order that pious Swiss 
and French youth, who were looking to the ministry of the 
Gospel, should no longer be forced to pursue their studies under 
the Unitarian doctors of the Academy. The arrival of Dr. 
Merle decided them for immediate action. The next year 
(1831) the Geneva Evangelical Society was formed, one of 
whose objects was to found the long desired Seminary. In this 



XV111 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 

movement Dr. Merle took a prominent part, and was placed at 
the head of the new School of Theology. His intimate friend, 
the excellent Mr. Gaussen, so favorably known in this country 
for his Theopneustia, and in Switzerland for many other writings? 
took an equal part in this important enterprise, and was chosen 
Professor of Theology. Mr. Gaussen is one of those in Geneva 
who have had to endure much of the " shame of the cross," and 
he has endured it well. For the noble stand which he had taken 
in behalf of the Truth, he was, by the government, turned out 
of the Church of which he was for years a pastor. A man of 
fortune, as well as of rich gifts and attainments, he has devoted 
himself, without a salary, to the infant Institution which he and 
Dr. Merle, sustained by some distinguished laymen — among 
whom I may mention Col. Tronchin, Ch. Gautier, and M. Bois- 
sier — have been the instruments, under God, of founding and of 
raising up to its present respectable standing. Commencing 
with some three or four young men, it has steadily increased, 
till it has now forty students, including both the preparatory and 
the theological departments. 

This Seminary has enjoyed the talents of other valuable and 
distinguished men. For several years, M. Galland was a pro- 
fessor in it. The late, and still much lamented Steiger, the pupil 
and friend of Tholuck, was a professor in it during some years ; and, 
at present, it enjoys the services of Messrs. Pilet and La Harpe, 
who are worthy colleagues of Merle d'Aubigne and Gaussen. 

The publications of Dr. Merle have been numerous. I will 
give the titles of the most important of them 

1 . Le Christianisme porte aax Nations. 

Christianity carried to the Nations — a Missionary Sermon. 

2. Celebration de la Cine. 

A Discourse on the Lord's Supper. 

3. Confession du nom de Christ. 

On the Duty of Confessing Christ before the World. 

4. Culte Domestique. 
On Family Worship. 

5. Discours sur P Etude. 
Discourse on Study. 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XIX 

6. .Eg Use appelee a confesser. 

The Church called to maintain the Truth. 

7. Enfans de Dieu. 
The Children of God. 

8. Etudes Chretiennes. 
Christian Studies. 

9. Foi et Science, 
Faith and Science. 

10. Miracles, ou deux Erreurs. 
Miracles, or two Errors. 

11. Voix de VEglise. 
Voice of the Church. 

12. Voix des Anciens. 
Voice of the Ancients. 

13. Libert e des Cultes. 
On Religious Liberty. 

Most of these publications are pamphlets of from twenty pages 
up to sixty or eighty. The last named is a volume of some 200 
pages, and was called forth by the state of things in Geneva last 
year, and is alluded to in the Discourse on Puseyism, where 
the author speaks of his having played the part of Cassandra, in 
what he had said respecting the recent Revolution in his native 
Canton. 

But Dr. Merle's great undertaking is his History of the Refor- 
mation in the XVIth Century. The first volume of this admirable 
work appeared in 1836. 

Two others have, at intervals, followed. The author is now 
engaged on the fourth, in which he is well advanced.* It treats 
of the Reformation in Great Britain, and is expected with very 
different feelings, by different religious parties in England. Nor 
is its appearance anxiously looked for by people in England 
only. 

It is not probable that the fourth volume will appear in French 
before the end of this present year, if even so soon. The fifth 
and sixth volumes — for it is Dr. Merle's intention to make six 
volumes instead of four, if God grant him life and health — will 

The fourth is just issued from the press. 1846. 



XX LIFE OP THE AUTHOR. 

not be published for some years. It is no easy task to write a 
History of the Reformation upon the plan which Dr. Merle pur- 
sues, — that of making authentic documents speak for themselves. 

It is not my intention to write a critique on Dr. Merle's work. 
It needs it not. The world has learned and acknowledged its 
surprising merits. It may almost be said that the History of the 
Reformation was never written until his matchless talent, for 
judiciously selecting and skilfully arranging facts, and graphically 
presenting them to the reader's mind, was brought to the sub- 
ject. With the art of a conjuror, if I may so speak, he causes 
scene after scene to pass before us, on which the dramatis persona 
are brought forward with almost the vividness of the objects 
which are presented to the bodily eye. For the first time, vast 
numbers of readers will learn the true characters of Luther, and 
Melancthon, and Calvin, and the other Reformers. And for the 
first time, the Reformation, with all the various and boundless 
benefits which it has conferred upon the world, is beginning to 
be, in some measure, comprehended by mankind. 

Three translations of the three volumes of this great work 
which have appeared have been published in Great Britain — 
those of Messrs. Walther, Kelly, and Scott — of which the first 
and the last are better than the second. Mr. Kelly's, however, 
has had a wider circulation in Great Britian than either of the 
others, because of the low price at which it has been published. 
Mr. Scott's translation is the latest of all, and is not only ex- 
tremely faithful but is also accompanied with valuable notes. It 
is published by the Messrs. Blackie, at Glasgow, in twenty-two 
numbers, each for a shilling, and every second one is adorned 
with an admirable portrait of one of the principal personages who 
figured in the Reformation — Luther, Melancthon, Tetzel, Leo X., 
Calvin, the Elector of Saxony, etc. This edition would be 
called by the French an affaire de luxe; but no one who could 
afford to pay for it would regret the difference of the price. 

It maybe insignificant to remark — but it will answer some in- 
quiries which have been addressed to me — that Dr. Merle d'Au- 
bigne is a large fine looking man, of most agreeable manners $ 
and personally , as well as mentally considered, he would be pro- 
nounced by every one to be altogether worthy to speak of Mar- 



LIFE OP THE AUTHOR. XXI 

tin Luther, John Knox, and the other giants of the Reformation. 
Nevertheless, I am pained to say it, his health does not corre- 
spond with the robustness of his frame, nor the vigor of his ap- 
pearance. He suffers much at times from complaints of the 
chest. I am sure that in making this statement, I shall secure 
the prayers of many a reader, that his valuable life may be spared 
many years to bless the Church and the world. 

R.B. 
New York, Jan., 1843. 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

PAGE 

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM, 27 

II. 
THE CHURCH AND HER VOCATION, , 49 

III. 
THE CHILDREN OF GOD, ...67 

IV. 

CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST, 79 

V. 

CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS, 101 

VI. 

CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM, 125 

VII. 

FAMILY WORSHIP,.... 145 

VIII. 
CHRISTIAN STUDIES, :.,.. 159 

IX. 
FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE, 185 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

X. 

PAGE 

THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH ONE, 201 

XL 
A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY,. 223 

XII. 
LUTHER AND CALVIN, 245 

XIII. 
PUSEYISM EXAMINE©, 273 



THE STUDY 



OF THE 



HISTORY OF CHEISTIANISM, 



AND 



ITS UTILITY FOR THE PRESENT EPOCH. 



TRANSLATED BY THOMAS S. GRIMKE, 

OF CHARLESTON, 8. 6. 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN1SM. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT GENEVA, JAN. 2, 1832. 



Gentlemen, 

My design is to address you on the History of the Re- 
formation in Germany — in the 16th century. Literature, the 
Sciences, the Arts, Philosophy, the Civil History of nations, have 
been successively in this city, and in the midst of you, subjects of 
instruction by men justly celebrated. 

I invite you to a new field — the history of Christianism.* — I 
ought then to assign the reasons of my choice. I ought to dis- 
close the advantages which I discover in the study of that history 
at this epoch. 

You are, perhaps, at this very time, my justification. — That we 
should believe it possible to fix the attention of men in our day on 
the history of the Christian religion ; that we should command an 
audience desirous of hearing it : this, Gentlemen, is a sign of the 
times. It proves that men of the world, absorbed until now in the 
exterior forms, the ornaments, the splendid dress of nations, and of 
their history, have at length begun to consider what is, what ought 
to be their heart and life. 

And yet, who is it, who dares to venture on this new career ? 
Who dares to follow so many men, admirable for genius, pro- 
found in knowledge, and skilful in the art of speaking ; whose 
privilege it is to gather every winter in this city, an audience of 
every age, and of both sexes ? Powerful indeed must be the mo- 
tive, which brings forward one who has been called, it is true, to 
preach the everlasting Gospel ; but who has never yet ventured to 
speak save in the Sanctuary, and with the aid of that holy office 
which exalts the humblest, and animates the most feeble. 

This motive is the excellence of that study, to which I invite 
you. 

There are in the life of each man in particular, and of nations 
in general, three great elements, 'politics, letters (comprehending, of 

* I have used the word Christianism, instead of Christianity, throughout 
the translation, the former being the term in the original. It appears to be 
singular that Christianism in French should mean the Christian Religion 
and Christianity, Christendom or the nations professing it; whilst iu 
English they signify the reverse, though the former has both meanings.— 
Translator, 



28 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

course, the sciences, the arts, and philosophy), and religion. And 
it might almost seem, as though these three elements have appro- 
priated to themselves the three great modifications of man. The 
political has engrossed his will and vigor of action. The literary, 
his intelligence, and all the variety of his imaginations and thoughts. 
The religious, his heart and the energy of his affections. But re- 
ligion, enthroned as it were in the centre, extends over the whole 
man her sceptre of power. 

There are then, according to these elements, three species of 
the history of man — the political, the literary, the religious. The 
History of Religion, it cannot be denied, is the least cultivated in 
our day. How zealously, on the contrary, do not men study 
political history, believing that they shall discover there, as augurs 
in the entrails of victims, the prognostics and the key of futurity ? 
How many systems of history, now picturesque, now philosophi- 
cal, are passing in review before us ! How many eminent men, 
within our own walls, has not their narrative of national events 
immortalized! With what ardor is not the history of letters 
studied ! Who has not read, again and again, the Lyceum of La 
Harpe, the works of Ginguene, of Schlegel, of De Stael, of Sis- 
mondi, and of so many others ? Still more is done. Each fashions 
this history for himself: he approaches these documents, these 
materials, so formidable in the other two departments ; he reads 
them, again and again, with delight, because they are the master- 
works of genius. Every educated man examines, compiles, 
judges, creates an entire history of letters in his own mind. 

But as to the History of Christianism, who is engaged in that ? 
Who studies it ? A handful of our contemporaries, if indeed so 
many. And yet, I regard it undoubtedly the most worthy of the 
attention of men : as that which, in our age, furnishes the most 
salutary lessons, and in whose prophetic entrails we shall learn 
correctly what is sought in vain elsewhere. 

Perhaps this first sitting will be suitably employed in the en- 
deavor, at the outset, to remove the prejudices entertained in our 
day, against studying the History of Christianism : and I shall 
afterwards establish the usefulness of this history, in the present 
age of the world. 

One of the distinctive features of the past age, was a spirit of 
profaneness and mockery. The History of Christianism was af- 
fected by it. This imposing edifice, which appeared as the work 
of ages, was assailed with sarcasms, that confounded in one sen- 
tence of condemnation, Catholicism and Christianism, the Church 
of Men and the Church of God. The structure of Men, which 
might perhaps have resisted all serious assaults, soon crumbled 
with a loud crash, before the light breath of ridicule. But in its 
fall, it drew along with itself the power which had overturned it. 
Man passes not in vain through such a crisis. He acquired 
beneath the ruins a new temper. Baptized in blood, our age 
could no longer exist in the frivolous atmosphere of its predecessor. 
The profane La Harpe, in some respects the successor of Voltaire, 
in the office of President of the Anti-Christian League, came forth 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 29 

a Christian from the dungeons of the Revolution, into which he 
had been cast an unbeliever. The tempest of the Revolution has 
not, however, entirely swallowed up the impious spirit which 
roused it. Still does it subsist among us, although a stranger per- 
haps to the characteristic spirit of our age. The History of Chris- 
tianism is still assailed by ridicule, in which you may perhaps 
discover, at times, some grains of the wit of Aristophanes and 
Voltaire. That ridicule must leave some impression on light 
minds, which may thus, for a season at least, become indifferent 
to grave and useful studies. It is not expected of me to answer 
sarcasms : one word suffices. Doubtless, ye scoffers of the age ! 
ye may find on this or that passage in the history of Religion, a 
brilliant quibble of heartless raillery ; but there is in Christianism 
and its annals, something beyond your reach. History exhibits it 
as an angel, bearing from Asia to Europe, from Europe through 
the whole Earth, and among all Nations, light and life: destroying 
evil everywhere in its course, and leaving everywhere, the in- 
corruptible- seeds of good. Whoever has met with it, has been 
healed by the salutary influence which it sheds around. Before 
such achievements of benevolence, the weapons of ridicule are 
impotent. The pointed shafts of the scoffer never can destroy the 
work of God. Childish arrogance only could attempt it : timid 
weakness only could fear it. 

There are men of a graver cast, though not less incredulous, who 
attack with other arms, the history of religion. What, they ask, 
can the History of Christianism reveal ? Why do you thus^un- 
advisedly ransack its annals ? What can you derive from them ? 
Christianism has been injurious to humanity. Man has been kept 
by it in swaddling clothes. Its influence on the civil and political 
state of Nations has been unfavorable. Such words afflict the 
soul by the deep ingratitude, the utter blindness from which they 
flow. We shall not even mention the blessings of Christianism in 
Eternity, though these are its chief object ; but shall stand on the 
very ground to which our adversaries challenge us. " Take, 5 ' 
will we say to them, " a map : lay before us a statistical view of 
nations. Where is light ? and where darkness ? Where is lib- 
erty ? and where slavery ? Do you not observe the shadows 
which rest on all the unchristianized States, and the light which 
covers Christian countries ? What is it, that rends the black and 
polluted veil, which hung so long over the shores of Otaheite, of 
Eimeo, of Hawai ? What but Christianism ? Take now a pen- 
cil ; mark by successive shadows, the regions, where knowledge, 
morality, religion, prevail the most ; you will find but one pro- 
gress, that of Christianism itself. Wherever the Gospel shines the 
brightest, there will you behold most abundant, the chief bless- 
ings of humanity. The United States of America, Great Britain, 
other Evangelical countries, where the light of the Eternal Word 
is shed in all its purity, will be at the top of the scale : and the 
transient shades which lead us from Christian to heathen regions, 
distinguish those portions of the earth, where, though Christianism 



30 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

exists, it i& stifled by the human elements commixed with it.* 
But why have recourse to this geographical coup d'ceil? The 
history of Christianism will itself give the answer to your objec- 
tions. There will it be seen elevating gradually from age to age, 
ftie character of nations. Still more : it will there be discovered, 
that even the corruptions of Christianism, those, against which 
you contend the most strenuously, have been useful to humanity, 
whenever they have retained the least element of the religion of 
Jesus Christ. There will you behold those Convents (the just 
objects of our reprobation) becoming, as it were, unconsciously, 
depositories for the preservation of so many ancient 'monuments 

* This passage recalls a similar one in my Address before the Literary 
and Philosophical Society of South Carolina, delivered 9th May, 1827. It 
is found at pages 23, 24, 25, of the volume containing my principal pieces 
on Literature and Education, published at New Haven, April, 1831, by H. 
Howe. It is as follows : 

" My subject calls, however, for a free, impartial review of the character 
of the Reformation, and of its influence on Science ; nor is it possible to 
examine the History of that period, in any point of view, however remote 
from Religion, without a continual reference to the state of the Catholic 
Church, in connection with government and society, both spiritual and 
temporal — with the Arts and Sciences — with the fortunes and character of 
nations — with the education and general welfare of the people. Consider- 
ing the Reformation as matter of history and philosophy, it must be a chief 
ingredient in every discussion, on enlarged principles, of the state of the 
world for the last three hundred years, of its actual condition now, and of 
its future prospects. Besides, the Protestants of these United States may 
well believe that, without the Reformation, they would have been rather 
like the South Americans, before the late Revolutions, than what they 
now are, the wonder, and admiration, and example of the world. They 
may well believe, also, that their Catholic brethren, fellow-heirs of the 
same glorious and inestimable heritage of Religious, Political and Civil 
Rights, never would have enjoyed, in any Catholic country, the full 
measure of power and liberty, of property and happiness, which the 
youngest child of the Reformation confers on the eldest daughter of the 
Christian household. Under these considerations, and with these senti- 
ments, I proceed to execute the task which I have undertaken ; satisfied 
that my opinions will be those not merely of a Protestant, but of an Ameri- 
can, and of a Man, the lover of truth, the thoughtful student of historical 
philosophy. In many of the following pages, I shall adopt the very lan- 
guage of Villers ; especially in those pages which express the severe, but 
deliberate judgment of that invaluable writer, as to the degraded condition 
of the whole circle of knowledge, at the close of the fifteenth century. 

" I have said that the Reformation only gave or could have given to all 
literature, not merely to the literature of Theology, a decisive, permanent 
character. To express it otherwise, my judgment is, that without the 
Reformation, the revival of learning, which had commenced, would have 
terminated as all others had, in public ostentation, princely patronage, and 
the dazzling homage of Genius and Taste, still intent 

'To heap the shrine of luxury and pride, 
With incense, kindled at the Muse's flame.' 

" But the people, the people would have remained almost, if not alto- 
gether, in the same degraded and miserable condition, as to civil, political, 
and religious rights, as to education, as to social improvement, and indi- 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 31 

of letters, amidst the deluge of Northern Barbarians, and when the 
flood had passed, again sending forth those treasures. But there, 
you will especially behold that illustrious Reformation, some of 
whose features I shall sketch, which delivered the human mind 
from the chains which had oppressed it, and which has become 
to the Nations, the dawn of a new day of light, evangelization, 
and life. In its history, Christianism is everywhere exhibited as 
the friend of human nature. 

But, you must confess, say other men of the age, that the his- 
tory of Christianity reveals to us many things, intrigues, wars and 
the like, which cannot but expose it, and diminish that respect, 
which you demand for it. This we deny. Christianism is a di- 
vine work, and of course perfectly pure. Whatever has flowed 
from itself is good. But, in descending from Heaven to Earth, 

vidual welfare. To illustrate this opinion, let us advert to the actual state 
of Europe, before the French Revolution, bearing in mind the remark of 
Montesquieu, that Loyola would have governed the world, but for Luther 
and Calvin. He, in defiance of the Reformers, has swayed Italy, Spain 
and Portugal: they rescued from him and his Church, and have ruled 
Holland, England and Scotland. Ignatius has governed South America: 
Calvin and Luther these United States. Is there now an American, 
whether of the Reformed or Romish Creed, who would exchange the con- 
dition of the Protestant Countries which have been named, for that of 
Southern Europe or Southern America ? Is it not obvious that Society 
has been comparatively stationary for 3000 years in these, while Protes- 
tant nations have been continually advancing ? Look at the wonderful 
progress of Holland, Great Britain, and our own country, since the Refor- 
mation. Place beside them, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and assign, if 
practicable, any adequate causes for the incalculable difference, except the 
principles of the Reformers. Every student of the philosophy of history, 
I feel assured, re-echoes the sentiment, these only are the causes. 
If then, as I have already said, Science and Art are nothing worth, unless they 
bless the people as well as adorn the State, and if, in Protestant countries, they 
have thus blessed, as well as adorned, beyond all parallel ; it becomes a 
question most interesting and momentous, how have the principles of the 
Reformers wrought this change in the use and application of the whole 
circle of knowledge'? I proceed to attempt an explanation; though I be- 
lieve that every improved mind already comprehends the development of 
my subject. 

" The Reformers began with the fundamental principle, the obligation and 
correspondent right of private examination and private judgment. They admitted 
no superior to control and limit this duty and this right, save God and his 
Scriptures. Whatever uninspired man had done or could do, whether indi- 
vidually or collectively, was acknowledged as a guide to the understanding, 
but not as authority to bind the conscience and the judgment. The position 
was taken that Man not only had a right, in regard to his fellow-men, but 
was obliged by the law of God to study his Word, and by that standard, to 
examine the history of the Church ; her doctrine, worship, and ceremonies ; 
the acts of councils ; the writings of the Fathers and the scholastic theo- 
logy ; and last, though not least, the authority of the Pope. This was, in 
religion, 'the declaration of independence' — and by its principles 
the Reformers did for the shackled mind, what the angel did for Peter in the 
prison ; they did for the mind's eye, what Ananias did for Paul, when, at 
his touch, the Apostle received his sight." — Translator. 



32 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

from God to Man, it has suffered alloy. Christianism in man, and 
even in the holiest of men, is not Christianism in God, that is to 
say, in Jesus Christ. Impute not to God, that of which man only 
is guilty. The water which falls from heaven is pure, and even 
the purest of all, for it has been distilled in the wonderful appara- 
tus of God. And yet, scarcely has it touched the earth, when it is 
already defiled. How often, alas ! will not the hardened heart of 
man suffer the life-giving waters of Christianism to penetrate his 
bosom ? To those heavenly influences how obstinately is it 
closed? Man drives away religion from his heart, and is content 
to wear it without, as a cloak to his sins. And then, the vulgar 
dignify, with the name of Christianism, what is thus displayed to 
their eyes ! History will rend this hypocritical mantle : and will 
reveal the passions which it hid, and which were the only moving 
cause in him, who had enveloped himself thus artfully. There 
will you see, for example, that those irreligious wars, called reli- 
gious, sprang not from Christianity, but from the immediate influ- 
ence of that very power of evil, which Christianism came to 
destroy. There will you discover, that those maxims of the Gov- 
ernors, of the chiefs of the Church, which you justly condemn as 
disgraceful, were directed against the religion itself of Jesus 
Christ ; that this was the victim which they immolated, not the 
tongue which uttered them. History justifies Christianism, dissi- 
pates every cloud and every prejudice, and all the hatred where- 
with man has been pleased to surround that sublime and hea- 
venly image, which dwells in the midst of ages ; and exhibits it 
to the admiration of men, in all its simplicity, innocence, beauty 
and glory. 

If Christianism be innocent of all that is usually laid to its 
charge, at least, it will be said, the history of the Church is the 
most barren, the most destitute of life and emotion, and conse- 
quently the least interesting, which can be imagined. Councils 
and decrees of Councils, Popes and bulls, metaphysical doctrines, 
subtile distinctions, scholastic systems, are not these all that it 
offers ? Doubtless, it would be strange that the history of this 
kingdom of God, which its founder said should be a living seed, 
that would become a great tree, full of sap, and casting all around 
its beneficent shade : or as leaven, which should leaven the whole 
lump, that is, should communicate life to the world ; that such a 
history should abound in unfruitfulness 'and subtilty. Not so, 
for there are two histories. There is, if you please, what we 
shall call " the History of the Church," that is, of human institu- 
tions, forms, doctrines, and actions; and "the History of Chris- 
tianism," which has brought into the world, and still preserves, 
a new life, a life divine ; the history of the government of that 
King who has said, " the words which I speak unto you are spi- 
rit and life : " the history of that regenerative influence of Chris- 
tianism, through which so many individuals and nations have ex- 
perienced a thorough change in their moral and spiritual condi- 
tion : the history of the first and second creation, which fashions 
a people for God upon earth: the history of that invisible Church, 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 33 

which is the assembly of the first born : Heb. xii. 23. Most His- 
torians, it is true, have hitherto presented only the barren history 
of the exterior Church ; because they themselves were only the 
outward Man, and had scarcely even imagined the life of the 
spiritual Man. But is this a proof that it does not exist ? Grant 
that human forms have destroyed this new dominion of truth, 
justice and love, which proceeds from the Father. Because you 
see at first only a dry and hard shell, will you reject the delicious 
fruit which is concealed under this homely covering ? In sea- 
sons of barrenness and death, the Church could only have a life- 
less and sterile history. But Life, while descending to the Church 
of our day, has descended also in its history. Reserve your objec- 
tions for those who may continue to drag on in the barren field 
of rationalism and human opinions. The old man sees in the 
field of the Church but dry bones. The new man there discerns 
that spirit which blows from the four winds, and creates for the 
Eternal " an exceeding great army," Ezek. xxxvii. 10. There is 
then a new History of Christianism : that which we have underta- 
ken to unfold and defend : and not the history of human forms and 
barrenness. 

" Do you then imagine that you shall find in Christianism, life, 
elevation, generosity," says a gloomy philosophy, which pretends 
that the individual good of each man ought to be the noblest ob- 
ject of his life. " What an illusion ! Those remarkable actions, 
that self-sacrifice, of which the history of Christianism seems to 
furnish examples, are but hidden passions, ambition, avarice, sen- 
suality, envy, covered with obvious veils : an egotism, somewhat 
more refined than that of the multitude. The only difference be- 
tween the grossest of men, and the heroes of the Christian history, 
is that these know how to disguise somewhat more ingeniously 
the passions which govern them. And if all be not thus explained, 
a deplorable fanaticism and enthusiasm will account for the rest." 
Such is the language that has been held, more especially of the 
history which I am called to lay before you, and of the most illus- 
trious characters which it presents to your view. Gloomy and 
hideous system ! which only taking account of the corruption of 
man, is ignorant of those pure and sublime inspirations which 
proceed from the Spirit of God : a system, which overturns the 
whole moral hierarchy, since the most dissolute and the most 
criminal of men would be at least sincere, by appearing such as 
they really are ; whilst the flower of humanity, men of disinte- 
restedness and self-sacrifice, would be a band of deceivers and 
knaves, whose only aim would have been to conceal the disgrace- 
ful motives of their actions. Seriously to refute such a system 
would almost be high treason against Divinity and humanity. 
The History of Christian sm shall itself be, moreover, the most 
triumphant vindication. It will open to you the gates of a world, 
different from that inhabited by the natural man. It will display 
to you a power, which a narrow-minded philosophy cannot com- 
prehend. The majority of men comprehend nothing but mate- 
rialism. Some, more enlightened, attain to rationalism. The his- 
2* 



34 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

tory of Christianism will cany us still higher. It will disclose to 
us spiritualism, which is the true, the primitive life of man, of 
which he was deprived, and which Christianism comes to restore. 
It will constrain us to acknowledge that life to be more certain, 
more real, than rationalism, and even materialism. It will set 
before us, and we shall almost touch with our hands, a strength 
of faith, which is given from above to man, and which overcomes 
the world and all the passions of the heart. It will teach us to 
understand this profound thought, " The first man is of the earth, 
earthy ; but the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the 
earthy such are they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, 
such are they also that are heavenly." 1 Cor. xv. 47, 48. 

" At least, however," it will be said, " it is certain and irre- 
futable, that the history of the Church most frequently presents us 
with controversies, agitations, quarrels, wars. What interest 
would you have us take in such things ? How, indeed, could we 
esteem such a history ?" Controversies, agitations, say you ? 
And are such the motives for your contempt of the History of 
Christianism ? But let me ask you, what beneficent principle, what 
fortunate conception for humanity has ever been established, with- 
out agitation, without a struggle, without a conflict? Philoso- 
phers ! had not your Galileo a contest to maintain, whilst he was 
teaching the movements of the heavens, and do not you honor 
him the more for it ? Literati ! had not your Corneille to endure 
discussion and criticism, whilst he was creating the language and 
poetry of France ? And you, ye Liberals of the age ! who, per- 
haps, chiefly assail the history of the religion of Jesus Christ, was 
your Mirabeau without combats in the tribune ? and when he blew 
the trumpet of new-born liberty, was the war, of which he 
sounded the signal, a short one ? or rather, are we.not now as be- 
tween two armies of nations, in battle array against each other, 
brandishing with impatience the arms which must decide the 
victory ? And Christianism, which attacks man in his dearest 
passions, though they are the very cause of his misfortunes, in his 
love of riches, his ambition, his vain-glory, in a word, in this 
inferior self, which man idolizes, and of which a sublimer self is 
the slave, shall this Christianism be alone exempt from struggles 
and contests ? The burthened atmosphere is only purified by tem- 
pests : and the crisis of his disorder is deliverance to the sick. 
And, in like manner, that truth may possess the earth, she must 
combat hand to hand with error, But the end, the result of Chris- 
tianism is peace. Peace upon earth ! Such was the cry from 
Heaven, when the earth received its Saviour. We are marching 
onwards to peace — Let us then march onwards, if necessary, 
through the fire of battle. 

But I am deceived if the history of the religion of Jesus Christ 
do not present to you far other objects than agitations and troubles 
It exhibits a phenomenon altogether unique, and to be found 
nowhere else. It offers to you peace, in the midst of trouble : 
meekness of spirit amidst the conflagration of the passions. It 
will lead you to the sanctuary of the men of God ; and whilst 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 35 

around them, agitations, conspiracies, and terrible cries prevail, 
you shall behold them calm, cheerful, and full of a peace which 
passeth all understanding. Satisfied with having borne witness to 
the truth, they have committed their cause to the Eternal, and re- 
main tranquil and at rest, waiting on him. Of this, the history of 
the Reformation and of that of Luther, in particular, will furnish 
you illustrious examples. The history of Christianism makes 
known the only real peace which has ever been upon earth. 

Are not such studies, say respectable men, but f of unsettled 
opinions, at least fitted to confuse us on religious subjects, to strip 
us of our faith, and to lead us into skepticism and incredulity ? 
There is nothing, after the Word of God, better suited to save us 
from incredulity and superstition, and to attach us to true Chris- 
tianism, than the history of the religion of Jesus Christ. Undoubt- 
edly, if you take one Ecclesiastical Historian, who presents a 
Religion and the Church in Popes and Councils ; or another who 
arrays them in a meagre natural theology, lightly shaded with 
Christianism, and in the barren instructions of human reason ; or 
another still, who exhibits them through metaphysical dogmas or 
scholastic distinctions — such would undoubtedly disgust you with 
what each would call religion. Bat where is the great evil ? 
Take, on the contrary, a historian, who presents to you the religion 
of Jesus Christ, such as it is in reality, " the light and the life of 
the world." Such a history, I feel assured, would make you love 
that religion. There is still more. If other considerations have 
shaken your faith, this study will strengthen it. The enemies of 
Religion, of Christianism, and of the Reformation, in particular, 
will perhaps exclaim, that craft, enthusiasm, credulity or incre- 
dulity, have accomplished these two great revolutions in the world. 
They will tell you that men had not time to examine : that they 
were accomplished by means of a commotion, from which man- 
kind were astonished to find that they had come forth Christian 
and Protestant. Let us stretch forth the torch of history, and all 
these phantoms of a hostile imagination instantly vanish. Then 
do you see how everything has been examined, discussed, tried ; 
how every inch of ground has been defended by the adversary. 
Abandoning the field of history, does he occupy that of reasoning ? 
Are you gravely assured that Christianism is contrary to human 
reason ? Are all those objections repeated, so much boasted of in 
our day, as the fruits of the advancement of the age, and aimed 
against religion itself, against the Divinity of the Saviour, salvation 
by grace, and the fall of man ? History still has something to say. 
She teaches you that these are shafts, long since used and broken ; 
the ideas of Greek and Pagan authors revived ; for she will point 
you to them in Celsus, and Porphyry, and Hierocles, Greek and 
Heathen writers. On the one hand, history shows that all these 
objections, so vaunted in our day, were employed from the earliest 
ages, against truth and the Church, which is its depository : and, 
on the other hand, she shows you that very Church, advancing 
unceasingly amidst these assaults, growing, and extending every- 
where its benefits. Fear not then ; for these assaults will no more 



36 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

injure the Church and arrest its progress now, than they have 
hitherto. During eighteen centuries, the little prejudices of the 
human mind have accustomed it to these attacks ; and with little 
or no anxiety on these subjects, the Church marches onward 
through eighteen centuries, to the triumph which her Head is pre- 
paring for her. 

But is there not reason to fear, that the history of the Church, 
and of the .Reformation in particular, may revive polemics, above 
all against the Roman Catholics, and may re-open the wounds of 
the Western Church, as yefbut imperfectly healed ? I believe the 
reverse. History will doubtless show us, in a general way, truth 
on one side and error on the other. But she will also show us 
good and evil mixed here and there ; she will show us, on the 
side of the Catholics, many a true Christian, although in some 
respects certainly but little enlightened ; and on the side of the 
Protestants , many a man unworthy of that name. She will show 
us Catholicism, adding without doubt many things to the Word 
of God, and preserving nevertheless most of the fundamental doc- 
trines of Christianism, the depravity of man, salvation through the 
atonement, the essential divinity of the Redeemer, the indispen- 
sable work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. And to pass thence to 
the history of the Reformation — I shall be a Protestant — I pro- 
claim beforehand — Yet not as a sectarian, but as a Christian. I 
desire not to be unmindful of the respect which is due to men, in 
whose ranks have shone the names of Laurence de Bibra, Sado- 
let, Borromeo, Vincent de Paul. Pascal, Fenelon. It shall not be 
my province to strike Catholicism with redoubled blows : that 
■was the affair of Luther's age ; it was done then, and is not the 
business of our age : but it shall be alone my object, if I can ac- 
complish it, to invest with a touching influence the living princi- 
ple, which produced in the sixteenth century a great religious 
regeneration, and which must produce the same in our day. I 
shall notice the evil deeds of Protestants when I meet with them. 
I shall notice the good actions of Catholics whenever I see them : 
and perhaps a favorable trait incidentally mentioned by a narra- 
tor (I cannot say^by a historian) of the Reformation, will soothe the 
mind more readily than apologies for Catholicism, in the mouth of 
one of its priests. 

But then it is lastly said, you must confess that the study of 
Christianism is advantageous to theologians only : but that we 
have nothing to do with it; that to us it is useless. I take the dis- 
tinction : certainly it is not necessary to salvation : the know- 
ledge of Jesus Christ is alone sufficient : and if we were address- 
ing those who were indifferent to all history, we should perhaps 
be less favorably situated for a reply. But we address an audi- 
ence, who have not neglected the literary and political history of 
Nations. We then say to you— Why should you reject that of 
Christianism ? If this concerns only divines, assuredly political 
history is the province only of Magistrates and Princes. When- 
ever the members of Councils of State, and of some other bodies, 
shall be the only students of civil history, I may understand that 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 37 

only Ministers of the Gospel should devote themselves to religious 
history. If there be a history which you desired to study, ought 
not that of religion to stand first ? Of the three great elements of 
history — politics, letters, religion — is not religion the most univer- 
sal, and that which ought, above all, to interest each member of 
society ? Had you not a soul and a God, before you had literary 
and political sympathies ? Is not religion paramount in whatever 
is most dear and sacred in man ? Let us grant that hitherto you 
have repelled religion as to yourselves, and that you desire to 
study that only which influences the destinies of man, is not 
Christianism the moving principle of political development, of in- 
tellectual labor ? What but this has given, and still gives, the most 
powerful influence to the social life, to the literary genius of mod- 
ern nations ? The study of the History of Christianism useless ! Is 
not this to say it is useless in a steam-boat, to study the machinery 
which communicates motion to the whole vessel ; that it is suffi- 
cient to study the vessel itself, the planks and rigging, which that 
machinery impels. The religion of Jesus Christ is the machinery 
which moves the world. 

But this very usefulness of that religion, especially at this 
present time, remains to be laid before you. 

Jesus Christ founded, in the midst of men, a kingdom of God ; 
and thenceforward the history of the human race, composed till 
then but of scattered, unconnected fragments, possessed a centre, 
to which everything might and ought to be referred. This divine 
kingdom gave unity to the Nations of the Earth, and to their 
history — and through it, isolated members became a body. 

One of the npblest and most essential ideas of our age, as yet* 
perhaps but indistinctly traced on many minds, but which must 
continually become more and more the fundamental thought of 
those who reflect and believe, is that in the new period now 
opening before us, there will be no longer, so to speak, a personal 
history of nations, bat a great history of human nature. Our age 
is the centre, where the numerous threads from various points are 
united, and thence issue in one cord. And what is this new 
period, but the fulfilment of the destinies of Christianism ? Whilst 
some philosophers saw indistinctly, but yesterday, something of 
this vast centralization of the racesof men, Christianism, opening 
the annals of a people, who had crucified their divine and eternal 
founder, exhibits there to the world the annunciation of this 
mighty event in the history of man, declared two thousand years 
before its occurrence, to Abraham the Chaldean, " in thee shall all 
families of the Earth be blessed," Gen. xii 3 : and proclaimed 
still more clearly two hundred years after, by an old man to his 
children, around his death-bed, when casting a prophetic look on 
the future, and announcing this Messenger, who was to issue from 
the midst of them, he adds, " Unto him shall the gathering of the 
people be," Gen. xlix. 10. Words of peace, which that mysterious 
person, when he appeared here below, repeats to his disciples 
in language still more striking, if that be possible, " There shall 
be one fold and one shepherd,'? John x. 16. The religions of 



3S HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

antiquity rendered impossible this vast assembly of nations. 
Like the languages of Babel, they were so many walls, which 
separated nations from one another. The tribes of the Earth wor- 
shipped only National Gods — those Gods only suited the nations 
who made them. They had no points of contact, none of sympa- 
thy with any other people. Falsehood has a thousand strange 
faces, not resembling each other. Truth only is one, and this only 
can unite all the races of men. The idea of a universal kingdom 
of truth and holiness was a stranger to the ancient world. And 
if some sages had a vague and obscure presentiment of it ; with 
them it was but a conception without the possibility of their even 
imagining what might be its reality. Christ came and immediately 
accomplished what the religions and sages of the world had not 
even been able to foresee. He founds a spiritual kingdom, to which 
all Nations are called. He overturns, according to the energetic lan- 
guage of his Apostle, the fences, the middle wall of partition 
which divided nations, and " hath made both one" — " for to make 
in himself of twain, one new man, so making peace." Eph. ii. 
14, 15. Christianism is not like the ancient religions, a doctrine 
adapted to a certain degree of development in nations ; it is a 
truth from heaven, which is able at the same time to act on man 
under every grade of improvement and climate. It bestows on 
human nature, whatever may be its rudeness, or the diversities of 
changes which letters and philosophy may have produced, the 
principle of a new and truly divine life. And this life is to be at 
once the great means of development to all nations, and the centre 
of their unity. With its appearance, commenced in the universe, 
the only real cosmopolitism. Citizens of Judea, of Pontus, of 
Greece, of Egypt, of Rome, till then mutual enemies, embrace 
like brothers. Christianism is that tree, of which the Scriptures 
speak, whose leaves are " for the healing of the nations.'* Apocal. 
xxii. v. 2. It acts at the same time on the most opposite states 
of society. It regenerates and vivifies the world, corrupted by the 
Caesars ; and soon after softens and civilizes the barbarous hordes 
of the North. And, at this very time, it produces similar effects on 
the citizens of London, Paris, and Berlin, and on the savages of 
Greenland, CarTraria, and the Sandwich Islands. The net is cast 
over the whole earth, and the day cometh when a heavenly hand 
shall hold captive in it all the races of men. Ye have perceived, 
men of the age, that we are passing out of the period of nations, 
and entering on that of human nature ; but fashion not for your- 
selves a paltry standard for the union of nations. A new hier- 
archy, with its common frame, cannot be the bond of unity, nor 
political liberalism, which carries tempests and discord in its 
bosom. Christ is this ensign of which the prophet speaks, Is. xi. 
12.; and around which " shall the gathering of the people be," 
Gen. xlix. 10. 

But whilst many in our day hail, at this moment, the dawn of a 
new re- organization, others, on the contrary, behold in it only an 
epoch of dissolution. And these two opinions, apparently oppo- 
site, are perfectly harmonious ; since dissolution must precede re- 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 39 

organization. The two great powers of man have been unable to 
resolve the problem of human nature. The hierarchy had under- 
taken it, but failed : and the iron arm of Rome was broken. 
Human philosophy rushed into its place, and said : I will accom- 
plish it. But the disorder of the nations has increased in a fright- 
ful ratio. There remains the power of God, or Christianism, which 
already, while human power was making its trials, has laid every- 
where the foundations of the new edifice. And it will succeed. 
Do you exclaim that, in our day, men walk in uncertainty : 
that all the doctrines for the welfare of nations are doubtful ? 
It is true, that all does seem in our day to be dissolving. But, 
man ! listen to thy master, a master of eighteen centuries old, who 
has assisted more than once at the decline and elevation of nations, 
at the decomposition and recomposition of the world, and who 
has been the great organic principle of nations. Listen to what it 
has been, to know what it will be ; and to what it has done, to 
know what it will do. Christianism is totally different from the 
religions of men. In these, it is man who gives strength to reli- 
gion : in that, religion gives strength to man. Whilst the Repub- 
lic was counting its days of glory, the gods of Rome shone with 
the greatest lustre. But when corruption had seized on domestic 
life, when personal ambition and venality had assailed public life, 
religion, worm-eaten at the base, decays and disappears with them. 
Jupiter falls, and is buried under the ruins of his own capital. 
Christianism, on the contrary, independent of man, remains firm 
amidst the fall of nations (their annals testify this), and renews the 
world by its power. When all the social forms of humanity are 
destroyed, as at the epoch of the invasion of the Barbarians, the 
religion of Jesus Christ remains upright on their ruins, and her 
hand scatters amid the chaos that seed, whence humanity shall 
rise anew. Fear not the mournful state of the world, at this time. 
History, and especially that which we shall lay before you, de- 
monstrates that when corruption has extended its ravages the 
farthest over the world, the Divine power of Christianism, which 
has not its roots in the entrails of human nature, rises with the 
greatest power. The Spirit of God is moving on the chaos, and 
out of it he will bring forth a new earth. 

But the history of Christianism will teach you, moreover, that this 
religion is the instrument which he has chosen to accomplish his 
work. It will exhibit her mode of action, not as a continued influ- 
ence, but as a succession of struggles and combats. The essence 
of Christianism is conflict with the world. And thus the true 
Church of Christ hath appeared from the beginning, as " militant" 
amidst the nations. Already have two enemies successively 
assailed her, and been vanquished, however easily they promised 
to crash her. At first, she had to combat without against the 
idolatry and vices of Paganism. Paganism fell. But scarcely had 
this victory been gained, when the danger appeared in the bosom 
of the Church. Whilst men slept, according to the parable of the 
Divine and Eternal founder of Christianism, the enemy came and 
sowed tares among the wheat, Matt. xiii. 25. The evil continued 



40 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

to increase. The Church had been founded that man might seek 
for heaven in it, and there he sought only the world. Then the 
true Church shook off the dust of death. Arrayed as it were, in 
an instant, in the spiritual armor which God had prepared for her, 
she began a war, the most terrible, because intestine. Rome, 
vigorously assailed, tottered, and the crown fell from her head. 
This war we propose to lay before you. It remains for Christian- 
ism to obtain a final victory. An enemy, who is neither within 
nor without, as were the two first, or rather who is both at the 
same time, advances to the last assault. I refer to the incredulous, 
anti-christian spirit of the age. More powerful, more terrible still, 
than the two first adversaries, he casts upon Christianism that look 
of disdain, which the god of the capitol once cast on the citizens 
of Tarsus, in chains at their feet ; and which, fifteen centuries after, 
Leo and the magnificent Court of the Medici cast, with a smile , 
into the obscure cell of an Augustin monk. Still more may be said. 
The anti-christian spirit of the world, now lifting his banner so 
high, does not suspect the enemy which is to vanquish him. And 
yet he will be conquered ; and the formidable giant of the age, 
w T ho defies the God of the armies of Israel (1 Sam, xvii. 45.), struck 
in the forehead, shall fall with his face to the earth, under the sling 
of the enemy whom he has despised. 

Is the question asked, by what arms shall this victory be gain- 
ed ? Here, again, the History of Christianism will give the an- 
swer. It shows you that this religion has twice regenerated the 
world, at least partially, by doctrines entirely its own. To pre- 
tend that the religious system, which is to accomplish the grand 
solution, desired by all, consists of those general ideas of religion, 
to be found in Rabbinical Judaism, in Mahometanism, and even 
in Pagan Philosophy, is a strange error : for these ideas never 
have produced the regeneration of the people, who have known 
them. The power of Christianism lies in its peculiarity. It 
compels man to feel the astonishing contrast, between his whole 
life, and the law of its holiness. It produces in him the desire of 
deliverance from so miserable a condition. It reveals to him the 
magnificent work, which the mercy of a God has accomplished 
for his rescue, in the death of the Cross. It proclaims, by the 
command of the King of the world, an entire amnesty through 
all the world. Now, we maintain two things. First, that this 
news of a full pardon of a perfect amnesty proclaimed upon 
earth, that rebellious province of the empire of the King of kings, 
is alone capable of touching, of changing the heart of man, and 
of inclining him through love to obey the Sovereign who reclaims 
them. Ye politicians of the age, what advice would you give to 
a king for the establishment of peace and subordination, in the 
midst of a rebellious people ? Classifications, conditions, scaf- 
folds ? or a generous amnesty without reserve, calculated to win 
all hearts ? And we maintain, secondly, that the submission of the 
heart to God, the inward power of Christianism, is the only 
power which can now heal the diseases of nations. Every bond 
is broken. Selfishness and the spirit of censure are universal. 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 41 

There are but two methods for the re-establishment of order and 
peace, among the rising and agitated masses : exterior and vio- 
lent measures of compression : or the interior persuasive power 
of Christianism. What do I say ? There is but one ; for as to 
the first, all nations have shown its inefficiency. Three days 
have sufficed. By destroying selfishness, and planting in the 
hearts of all, the love of God and the love of man, Christianism 
alone will resolve the great problem, and establish liberty among 
the nations with order and peace.* These truths, taught by the 
nature of things, history will confirm. As to the first, she will dis- 
close to us the unheard of powers of Christianism ; she will 
prove to us that these doctrines can accomplish an actual second 
birth of human nature. And as to the second, contemporaneous his- 
tory shall instruct us. Inquire of her in what nations order and 
liberty are the most closely united, and she will answer by point- 
ing to the countries where the Gospel is the most openly pro- 
claimed, the most universally believed. But above all, history 
will show that a power not of man hath produced these partial 
regenerations which are symbols and precursors of that universal 
regeneration, announced by Christianism. Call this power, God, 
or the Spirit of God, or even Providence — the name is of little con- 
sequence — the fact is certain, something hath descended from 
heaven. Such is the present state of the world, that whoever be- 
lieves not in this power, as independent of the world, may well 
despair. But for ourselves, nothing terrifies us. " Give me," said 
Archimedes, " a place to stand on, and I will move the earth." 
Christianism is that point beyond the world, from which it shall 
be one day entirely displaced ; and shall revolve on a new axis of 

* These reflections of our author induce me to place in a note, two 
passages of the same Address, referred to in Note 3, They are found in 
the same volume, at pages 17 and 28. 

" And do we not see that the total failure of the Greeks and Romans in 
political philosophy is due to the same cause, as their failure in morals 1 
viz. an ignorance of the only true foundations of society and government, 
of the authority of public, and the obedience of private men, of the political 
and civil rights of the citizen? All these, according to the wise principles 
and experienced judgment of modern times, are laid in moral obligation, 
with God as its author, and Man as its subject. In a word, the code of 
public morals is founded on the code of private morals. Government is 
regarded as an institution for the good of society, and rulers but as agents ; 
whilst the relative rights and duties of the governor and the governed are 
referred to the plain, practical sense, to the divine, yet simple wisdom, to 
the pure, the just, the immutable principles of Christian morals. In fine, 
the New Testament is the moral constitution of modern society." 

" The grand result of all the principles of the Reformation, and of all the 
considerations flowing from them, is worthy of such a cause, and of such 
champions, as the Reformers. It centres in two words — duty and useful- 
ness : Duty, as the only criterion of right; usefulness, as the only standard of merit. 
In a word, the Reformation ordained, not only for its own day, and the 
communities of that day, but for all time, and for all nations, that the New 
Testament is the only genuine moral constitution of Society, and its principles, the 
only safe and ivise foundation of all civil and political establishments." — Trans- 
lator. 



42 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

righteousness and peace. Then shall be poured out on all nations 
a mighty influence of the Spirit of God. Such are the most ancient 
promises. The Trojan war had just closed,* and Rome was not 
yet founded, when, in the midst of the people to whom God had 
entrusted the germs of religion for all the nations of the earth, 
these prophetic words resounded, " until the Spirit be poured upon 
us from on high," " and the work of righteousness shall be peace." 
Isaiah, xxxii. 15, 17. 

Do you desire to know the obstacles which this renovation of 
human nature has to encounter, so that you may wisely remove them. 
The history of Christianism will point them out. They have been 
the same at all times. A wisdom, shall I say, or a folly, altogether 
earthly and carnal, which ridicules divine things, and would con- 
traci God and his kingdom to the narrow dimensions of its own 
scale ; a priestly despotism, which claims alone the privilege of 
managing heavenly things, which turns a deaf ear to examination 
and research into the Divine Word, and materializes religion : a 
fanaticism, which opposes with all its might the knowledge of the 
truth ; which, being hostile to liberty, would silence those who 
utter it ; which labors to arm public opinion against Christianism 
and Christians, — whatever may be the name which fanaticism 
bears, such as Jewish, Pagan, Dominican, or falsely liberal and 
philosophic — such are the principal obstacles which the History 
of Christianism exhibits. 

Do you ask with the Age for movement, for progress ? History 
will show you that Christianism is the religion of progress : and 
that she calls man by continual advancements, to the liberty and 
the glory of the children of God. Let us carefully remark, that 
there are only two spheres, in which advancement can be made — 
viz. in the religion destined to renew mankind, or in man himself 
called to be renewed. The man of our Age ascribes this progress to 
religion : Religion — to man himself. Christianism came forth per- 
fect from God, and is unchangeable as its author. Thou, Man ! 
art thus continually to advance : and in like manner that immense 
Christian Society, which the truth enlightens. The sun is not 
himself advancing to perfection ; but perfectionates the shrub, 
which, receiving life from him, becomes a majestic tree. It is the 
same with Christianism and man. The Gospel places the goal, 

* According to the usual chronology, the Trojan war happened at the 
very commencement of the 12th century (B. C. 1193) before the Christian 
aera. Isaiah prophesied B. C. 760, and Rome was founded B. C. 753 ; so 
that it seems very incorrect, to speak thus of an intermediate event (the 
prophecy) when it happened 433 years after the first, and only 7 years be- 
fore the last event. And if we were to allow, with Sir Isaac Newton, " that 
the ancient profane history is generally carried about 300 years higher back- 
ward than the truth*," yet if we reduce the first date by 300 years, so as 
to bring it to 893 B. C, and reduce the date of the building of Rome by 
106 years, according to Newton's principles (by allowing 18 or 20 years — 
say 20 — for the reign of each of the Kings), to B. C. 647 — still the expres- 
sion " venait de finir" had just ended, would be incorrect, when applied to 
an event, 133 years before the days of Isaiah. 



HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 43 

towards which that Christian Society ought to tend, beyond the 
veil which separates the two worlds. Thus, the Gospel sum- 
mons society to a progress, incomparably beyond all that human 
systems demand, and assigns a task which can only be accom- 
plished in eternity. 

Will you speak of enlightenment ? Will you say that we have 
reached an age too full of light for the triumph of Christianism ? 
The History of Christianism will show you, that she fears not the 
light, though frequently a false one. I shall not speak of the pre- 
sent epoch, when she lifts her head with more energy than ever. 
This age at least ought to be out of the question. I shall not speak 
of the Reformation, preceded for a semi-century, by the great 
events which signalized the revival of letters — we shall soon attend 
to it. But consider what the History of Christianism records on 
its first leaf. The age of Augustus, when Jesus was born, is among 
the most brilliant in the annals of mankind. Christianism chose 
the noon-day for its appearance. A religious system, which had 
lasted as long as the nation, was crumbling under the assaults of 
the reason of the age : and, at that moment, Christianism presents 
itself to be, in like manner, examined and assailed. The raillery 
of the man of wit, the assaults of eloquence, the protracted war- 
fare of philosophy and learning, it challenges all : it sustains the 
shock : and nothing moves it. On the contrary, it advances, it 
leads the thoughts captive, in obedience to the God whom it 
announces : and in celestial triumph on the theatre of human 
glory, it often numbers around its car those who had been the 
most formidable of enemies. Christianism is the true light ; it is 
the sun which rises above all the lights of this lower sphere. " I 
am the light of the world," said Jesus Christ. 

Lastly, will the Age speak of the future ? Will attention be 
vouchsafed to a doctrine only so far as it relates to the future ? 
The future belongs to Christianism. She claims it not to-day, or 
yesterday, like the ephemeral prophets of our day. She said so 
four thousand years ago. The seventeenth century was that of 
the past: the eighteenth is that of the present: the nineteenth is 
that of the future, and this belongs to Christianism. Men, if en- 
lightened and sincere, can no longer continue strangers to the an- 
cient promises of the future, laid up in the book of Nations. Fol- 
lowing out in history the accomplishment of the Oracles of God, 
they will arrive at those which declare, that " the Earth shall be 
full of the knowledge of the Lord" — " his rest shall be glorious." 
Is. xi. 0, 10. Ever since the men, who were the heralds of God, 
uttered these words, all has been advancing, and all is now moving 
onward to their glorious fulfilment. Christianism is on her march, 
and she will never retreat. Her work is scarcely rough-hewn ; 
but she will finish it. She will bring about a great revolution on 
earth, which shall change its very being. The times are not per- 
haps very distant, when its destinies will be accelerated. A new 
history commences. Christ opens to the world the gates of a new 
future. " Great voices" shall be one day heard, as a prophet tells 
us, saying, " the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms 
of our Lord and of his Christ." Rev. xi. 15. 



44 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANISM. 

These are my reasons for maintaining that the history of Chris- 
tianism is the most important of all historical studies : not only in 
general, but particularly with a view to the present epoch. Chris- 
tianism holds in her hands the future destinies of the world. She 
bears in herself the regenerative force that will renew the na- 
tions, the bond which must unite them. Here is that beneficent 
power which will spread over the earth and establish righteous- 
ness, liberty and peace. ye men of the age ! there only may 
you learn the direction which you ought to give to all your efforts 
and labors. Study in the past the history of that which must ac- 
complish such great results in the future. Dedicate to this study 
your spirit of research and your profound meditations. Set the 
example of abandoning the beaten track of the world : and 
of seeking light, life, the future, where only they are found. 
Young people who hear me, be the first to comprehend the call- 
ing of the new generation : receive first for yourselves, the light 
which Christianism has kindled : then go forth the beacon fires of 
the Nations. 

I am now to ask your attention to the history of the Reformation 
in Germany, or at least of the most important period of that his- 
tory. Perhaps you will inquire what has led me to select that 
subject, and what circumstances have induced this narrative. I 
saw Germany, and loved her for the sake of this excellent work, 
which I propose as my theme, The Reformation, at the festival 
of its third centennial jubilee, welcomed me on the road, and in the 
Germanic cities, on my arrival in 1817. I recall (and not without 
some pain, when I reflect how far from them was the spirit of the 
Reformation) those bands of students, who flocked to the famous 
antique castle of Wurtzburg, where we shall one day, in the course 
of my review, behold Luther a captive. I love to believe that 
those youths were rather indiscreet than guilty ! I well remember 
how the gates of that ancient fortress (to which those young Ger- 
mans were ascending in solemn procession) opened immediately 
before me, at the name of Geneva, and the emotions revive which 
I experienced, when I found myself in the prison-chamber of 
Luther. I remember those melodious strains which, some days 
after, announced the festival within the walls of Leipsic, descend- 
ing before the dawn of day, from the summit of the invisible 
towers of the churches, as though they had been music from 
heaven. Again, I met the Reformation in illustrious teachers at 
Berlin. I shall name only Neander, the father of the new History 
of Christianism ; Neander, whose tender affection is so dear to 
my heart, and who has raised up in Germany that Christian 
instruction, to which other friends, his juniors, the Tholucks and 
the Hengstenbergs, now impart life with all the strength of their 
faith. Again I found it on the borders of the Elbe, in the midst of 
the kindred and friends of the simple, yet profound Claudius of 
Wandsbeck — and oMie subjime poet of " The Messiah." Again, 
I found it in the ancient "and Catholic Brabant itself, near the throne 
on which sat the descendant of the Nassaus, the heir of the Silent, 
that noble hero of the Reformation of the Low Countries. There 



HISTORY OF CHR1STIANISM. 45 

the earth soon trembled beneath my feet. The throne which it 
bore, crumbled at the sound of the fall of another throne. A queen 
of cities became, during four days, the bloody field of horrible 
combats. There I was a witness, and nearly a victim of unspeak- 
able calamities. I returned to our mountains, after an absence of 
fourteen years, desiring, if God should give me adequate strength, 
to speak amidst my countrymen, of those admirable things whose 
glory and influence met me everywhere. Perhaps those noble, 
correct, and liberal manners, whose charm I experienced in a 
foreign land, have not been found by me in all at home. Subject, 
however, myself to human frailties, I shall know how to excuse, 
and not to condemn them in others. I promise, then, a cordial 
welcome to all who are disposed to hear my simple narrative. 
We shall survey together the plains of Mansfeld, the cells of Erfurt, 
the halls of Wittenberg, the palaces of Augsburg, of Leipsic, and 
of Worms. You will behold the Reformation. You will examine 
all things. You will not suffer the yoke of man to rest on your 
necks. I have seen Wittenberg ; I have seen the land where the 
despotism of Rome perished : let us not bow down before the 
despotism of the Age. A freeman myself, I seek after freemen ; 
and I believe I have found them. May the divine blessing rest on 
my narrative ! May words be vouchsafed to me, suitable to spread 
true light and true liberty ! and, whilst I am relating to you the 
history of a great event in the kingdom of God, may the image of 
Christ, King of the Church, grow unceasingly before your eyes* 
and in your hearts ! 






THE CHURCH 



CALLED 



TO CONFESS JESUS CHRIST. 



TRANSLATED BY M. M. BACKUS. 



THE CHURCH AND HER VOCATION. 



PREFACE. 



Many Christians at Geneva, as well as in the canton of Vaud 
and in France, and doubtless in other countries of Protestant 
Christendom, have felt, while they reviewed the actual state of the 
Church of Jesus Christ, that there was need of a further mani- 
festation of that great and glorious unity, which exists among 
those who have been redeemed unto God by the blood of Jesus 
out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. 

They believe, that in the face of the combined efforts of Rome 
and of all an ti- christian opinions, evangelical Christians ought to 
gather round their Captain and unite in the confession of their 
common faith. A proposition to this effect was made in a nume- 
rous assembly which met at Geneva, the evening of the anniver- 
sary (1840) of the Evangelical Society. Some friends of the Gospel 
took up the same subject more recently at the time of the annual 
gathering at Lausanne. We have frequently observed that it is 
only after the lapse of years, and even after numerous repulses, 
that the most useful ideas are perfected, modified, received, and 
at -length fashioned into realities. This of which we are speaking 
may likewise encounter its obstacles ; the proposition which has 
been made may not have a single immediate consequence ; but 
whoever believes in the word of the Lord cannot, it seems to us, 
entertain any doubt of the accomplishment of this Christian thought 
at a period in the future more or less remote. " Wherefore God 
also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is 
above every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should 
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
the earth, and that everf tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 

Some persons, for whose judgment the author entertains a high 
respect, have thought that under these circumstances the publica- 



50 PREFACE. 

tion of the following discourse, pronounced in the chapel of the 
Theological School of Geneva, and bearing only indirectly on the 
thought to which we have referred, might perhaps prove of some 
service. 

It is a common apology that a discourse is published at the re- 
quest of its auditors. The author finds himself obliged to repeat this 
on the present occasion, in order to throw upon his friends a part 
of the responsibility of a production, the many deficiencies of 
which, as well as its numerous imperfections, could not otherwise 
be justified. Nevertheless, he believes with his friends, that the 
subject of this discourse is of some importance, and merits the 
attention of Christians at the present moment. For this reason* 
although these leaves were not destined for the public eye, he 
commits them to his brethren* commending them to the blessing 
of God. 



A DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED AT GENEVA, SEPTEMBER 27, 1840. 



" Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my 
Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I am 

. not come to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against 
his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her 
mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be those of his own household. He that 
loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me : and he that loveth son or 
daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not hisf cross and 
followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that flndeth his life shall lose it : and he 
that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." Matt. x. 32-39. 

The words you have heard, were pronounced by the Lord in 
view of a day of trial. For three centuries to come, the Church 
was to be that woman, whom St. John in the Apocalypse saw, 
clothed with the Sun, even Jesus Christ our Righteousness, hav- 
ing on her head a crown of twelve stars, the crown of the Apos- 
tles, " travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." It was 
necessary then, for Christ to strengthen her in the confession of 
her faith, that she might remain firm in the midst of her long and 
severe throes. 

My brethren, we live in a period which bears some analogy, 
perhaps, to that in which these words were spoken. Many signs 
seem to indicate that the time draws nigh, in which the Church, 
long straitened in a narrow place, is about to be diffused 
throughout the nations of the earth; in which converted Israel 
shall be re-established in his dwelling-place, and the false Pro- 
phet of the East and the High Priest of the West shall see their 
power crushed. Statesmen, who know little of the prophecies, 
and the most incredulous of the public journals, already speak of 
some of these events. The Jews turn their eyes towards the Holy 
Land, the Turk in Constantinople feels the earth tremble beneath 
his feet ; and, as a missionary once remarked to us, who had re- 
cently returned from Jerusalem, where he had been familiar with 
the first Mohammedan families, the rumor is spread throughout the 
East that Mohammedanism is soon to fall ; that Jesus Christ will 
soon descend upon the summit of the great Mosque of Damascus, 
and incorporate Judaism, Christianity and Islamism in one single 
and primitive religion. Such are the presentiments of the people 

But before these things take place, there must be many a strug- 
gle. Do we not in fact see the enemies of Christ strengthening 
themselves in bold systems of unbelief and pantheism, presump- 
tuously placing themselves before the cross of Jesus ; the power 
of Rome stirring over the whole earth, its convents rising again in 



52 THE CHURCH 

France, and the most devoted soldiery of the Papacy, a celebrated 
society establishing itself in all parts, and even in the bosom of 
onr own confederacy ? Do we not hear wars and rumors of wars? 
Is not the East already lit up and gleaming with the flashing 
lightnings, those precursors of the thunder ? And are not the 
pow r ers of the East and the West, at this hour, gathering together 
around the land of revelation — that Judah, which is already be- 
coming the centre of the world, of whom it is said, Judah shall be 
saved and Jerusalem shall dwell in safety ? 

We do not pretend, my brethren, to know the times or the 
seasons ; but if, on the one hand, we ought to have much discre- 
tion and caution in these matters, would it not, on the other hand, 
be willfully closing our eyes to the light, to maintain that both in a 
political and religious point of view, the world has not now 
reached a crisis, but that she is rolling on through a period of very 
ordinary tranquillity ? I think then, that it is meet for us to medi- 
tate upon the words our Lord gave to his disciples, to strengthen 
them through three centuries of persecutions, and which are de- 
signed to confirm his people throughout all time. 

In times, such as those of which we speak, the great duty to 
which Christ calls his followers, is that of a fearless profession 
of his name. It is, first, the duty of each Christian ; secondly, the 
duty of the Church. Let us consider these two duties, and may 
the Lord assist us to discharge both ! 

I. Persons are frequently found (perhaps there are such in this 
assembly) who would gladly become Christians, converted Chris- 
tians, without revealing the change to the church, and provided 
it might remain a secret between themselves and their Lord. 
These weak Christians have an excessive fear of everything which 
would cause them to be recognized in their true characters. 

You will hear them advance, in their justification, that the king- 
dom of Heaven is within us ; that Christianity is too holy a thing to 
be presented to the world. But (perhaps without their perceiving 
the fact) it is this very fear of the world which rules and restrains 
them. A celebrated and corrupt church has admitted this pitiful 
hypocrisy. There are secret Romanists in Protestant countries ; 
there are still more in heathen lands. The numerous and pre- 
tended converts in China, of whom Rome so loudly boasts, conceal 
their faith in that empire and give themselves out as isolators ; 
and there we find that Christianity without a confession of faith 
which many would see established in the bosom of Christen- 
dom. 

The Evangelical Christian church rests upon principles alto- 
gether opposite, although there are even in our days those who 
would bend its nature in this respect. She declares with the 
Apostles that it is not sufficient to believe with the heart unto right- 
eousness, but that with the mouth confession also must be made 
unto salvation, and instead of the accommodations and tergiver- 
sations of Rome, instead of the silence, the indifference, the fear 
and the respect to human opinions of some Protestants, who for- 



AND HER VOCATION 53 

get the Rock from which they have been hewed, the Evangelical 
church proclaims and fulfills the sure and sovereign word of 
Christ. " Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him 
will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven ; but who- 
soever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my 
Father which is in heaven." 

Yes, weak and timid Christians, it is not sufficient for us to 
imagine that we can belong to Christ in the depths of our hearts. 
If we have truly embraced Jesus Christ we shall make it known 
to all. What ! saved by him from eternal death, shall we not 
praise him with our whole soul ? Oh ! that all might read in our 
life an epistle traced by the hand of Jesus, proclaiming his ineffa- 
ble love. 

Very true, you reply; but are we to be counted unfaithful, be- 
cause we have had to endure nothing for Christ ? It is mere ex- 
aggeration to maintain that one cannot be a sincere Christian 
without enduring persecution. Does not Christianity everywhere 
tend to produce harmony, benevolence and peace ? How then 
can we be pursued with contempt and hatred since Christianity 
has raised us all above them ? This might have occurred in the 
early ages, in the midst of Pagans, but at this time, in the bosom 
of Protestant Christendom, in our church, no one need be tempted 
through fear of persecution to deny Jesus Christ. 

Think not, replies Jesus himself unto you, think not that I am 
come to send peace on earth ; 1 am come to set a man at variance 
against his father and the daughter against her mother. Yes, if 
your conversion is genuine, if you truly confess Jesus Christ, think 
not to escape this universal rule. 

Jesus Christ, doubtless, came not to bring the sword, but such 
however is the invariable effect of *his coming whenever he ap- 
pears. And how can it be otherwise ? But what happens in the 
world ? The Gospel has proved effectual upon a certain person of 
your acquaintance, (perhaps upon yourself!) It has effected a 
fundamental change, which is seen in the whole life of this new 
Christian. This change attracts the attention of his friends, it is 
inevitable ; and in view of this work of God they are reduced to 
this alternative, either to submit to the same transformation or to 
condemn it in him. Not willing to undergo the former, they have 
recourse to the latter ; they condemn the conversion of their friend 
as an irrational, enthusiastic, fanatical, methodistical thing. And 
if this new Christian (be he yourself or another) keep himself 
near them, then their irritation is constantly displayed in a growing 
measure ; for the shame and hatred of the world which the faith- 
ful disciple draws upon himself, is partly reflected upon them- 
selves ; the condemnation they should pronounce upon their own 
heart, becomes the more vivid the nearer that Christian approaches ; 
aud there is a natural impulse to rally such men, and recall their 
reason, imagining that they are surely gone mad. 

Undeceive yourselves then, my brethren : the confession of Jesus 
Christ may be a difficult task even in the absence of extraordinary 
circumstances. If you are upright and sincere in your profession, 



54 THE CHURCH 

you cannot escape opposition ; it is the ordinary course of the 
world. A man's foes shall be they of his own household. 

Permit me, then, in this place to put to you a question suggested 
by your words. What will Christ answer to your excuse ? Is not 
the reception which you have until this hour received from the 
world, a sure indication that Christ will one day reject you ? No ! 
you reply. Some prudence is certainly requisite in order to avoid 
opprobrium ; we have made some slight sacrifices, and availed our- 
selves of some trifling accommodations. But what ! If we have 
merely been guiltless of great offences against Christian morality, 
if our only fault has been the non-confession of Christ before our 
friends, in our families, as frequently and as courageously as we 
ought perhaps to have done, does it follow that we are not in 
Christ, that for so light an offence he will deny us eternally ? Im- 
possible. 

Here again I will reply to you, not in my own words, but in those 
of the divine oracle. " He that loveth father or mother more than 
me is not worthy of me, says the Lord. He that loveth son or 
daughter more than me is not worthy of me." If through fear of 
a father or a mother, of an elder brother or a sister, if through love 
for your children, through a desire of not compromising the future 
prospects of a son, the establishment of a daughter, you have 
yielded on any occasion, and purposely hid your sentiments from 
your associates, are you, in the literal sense of the Master's decla- 
ration, worthy of Christ ? With your conscience I leave the answer. 
Further ; suppose you confess Jesus in the family circle, that you 
support even the reproaches of your mother or of your son, and 
that you walk faithfully in this way until the last extremity, but 
that in case of violent reproach, the deep contempt of the world, 
yea, I go even further, in case persecution and the stake should 
be presented to you, you should be astonished, should falter, should 
keep silence and turn your back on Jesus as did Peter, — then not- 
withstanding all that you might have done, Christ would have a 
strong reproach to utter against you. Why hast thou turned back, 
he might say to you ; have I drawn back from thee ? This cross 
which you have rejected have I not borne for you ? For you did 
I not permit myself to be led to Calvary ? Were not my hands and 
feet pierced for you ? But you have loved your ease, your inte- 
rests, your life, more than my kingdom and my glory. I know you 
not. He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me is not 
worthy of me. 

Why should we be astonished at this severity of the Lord, when 
we see that we act in regard to him, so totally different from the 
manner in which we act towards the world. Who among us 
would not submit to a painful operation, if certain that it would 
bring hirn some permanent benefit ? And shall we not esteem 
eternal life worthy of a few brief trials ? 

Oh ! there is not before you the cross, the sword, the scaffold ; 
death I know is not before your eyes. But no matter, it is at 
this price we ought to accept Jesus Christ. No one is truly in 
Christ unless he is prepared, in order to confess him, even to give 



AND HER VOCATIONo 55 

tip his life. It is thus we must act to save our own souls. It is 
a deplorable thing, this same faith — if I may so term it — which is 
found in the Church, and which will certainly fail in the day of 
martyrdom. All are not called to confess Christ upon the scaf- 
fold, but every one ought to have the spirit to endure it. And 
this word that we preach to you is as true for tranquil times as 
for a time of trouble and blood. He that findeth his life shall lose 
it : and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. 

IT. But we will take still higher ground : we will survey the whole 
Church, and say to her, That which is true for each individual is 
true for the Church. And , when I speak of the Church, the question 
is still of your duty ; your duty, however, not as an isolated per- 
son, but as a member of an universal society, the Church. 

The Church is called by her Master to confess him before the 
world. Why then is not the duty of each one of us the duty of us 
all ? Is it because the obligation of a soldier to be faithful to his 
colors is not that of the whole army ? And as God has ordered the 
movement of each star, does it not follow that the whole heavens 
should move harmoniously in its course ? 

Every false Church is hostile to this individual confession of 
Jesus Christ. " Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Christ," says 
St. John, " shall be put out of the synagogue," but every true 
Church confesses her Lord. The minister is called to confess him, 
not only as an individual, but as a minister and representative of 
the Church to imitate Timothy and like him to " make a good con- 
fession before many witnesses." The Church ought in all things 
to follow her leader. Christ has left us an example, says the 
Scripture, that we might follow in his steps. Jesus Christ says 
St. Paul before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession. And 
what is the eulogy Jesus passed, not on an individual, but on a 
Church, even that of a Pergamos, when from her midst the cruel 
Domitian took the faithful Antipas and caused him to be shut up 
in a brazen ox heated by fire, according to the acts of that mar- 
tyr ?* The glory of this Church, Jesus declares, was her confession 
of the name of Christ and her faith in the Lord. " I know thy 
works ; and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is : saith 
he which hath the sharp sword with two edges ; and thou holdest 
fast my name and hast not denied my faith, even in those days 
wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among 
you where Satan dwelleth." 

Such then, my brethren, is the duty of the Church ; the Bible 
establishes it; and a Church that confesses not the great mystery 
of piety, God manifest in the flesh, is as unfaithful and guilty in her 
associated capacity, as is that Christian who fails to do it as an 
individual *• these are the simple conclusions of sound judgment. 

This is likewise what the Church universal has recognized. Yes, 
my brethren, it is not we who would arbitrarily impose this duty 
on the Church ; on the contrary, the Church in her best days has 
not ceased to proclaim and fulfill it. 

* Bollandi Acta. 



5(3 THE CHURCH 

She felt the necessity and duty of this confession, when, in the 
beginning of the fourth century, a deplorable heresy, the denial of 
the eternal divinity of the Son of God, began to spread through- 
out the world, and the church universal, assembled from the East 
and the West at Nice, A. D. 325, in the persons of its bishops, re- 
jecting the errors of Arius, declared in the presence of the first 
Christian Emperor and of all the habitable world : " We believe 
in our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten before all ages and not created, 
very God, of the same essence with the Father, by whom all 
things were made, and who became man for our salvation.* 

The Church in Germany more than three centuries ago felt this 
same necessity and duty, when at Augsburg, in 1530, at the period 
of the revival of Christianity, in view of terrible wars and frightful 
persecutions which seemed ready to burst upon her, when com- 
manded by Charles V. to suspend the preaching of the word, she re- 
plied through her organ, the Margrave of Brandenburg : " Rather let 
my head be severed from my body, than not confess my God and 
His Gospel ! " and when the evangelical princes, being solemnly as- 
sembled in the imperial chapel, in the presence of that mighty 
emperor, who reigned over two worlds, of a multitude of sove- 
reign princes, of bishops, Qf ambassadors, and of the mighty of 
the earth, in the midst of the glory of the age, the elector of Sax- 
ony and his brethren in the faith arose, the chancellors advanced, 
and the renovated church proclaimed for two hours, in a loud and 
intelligible voice, in the most profound silence and with the most 
powerful effect, her faith of great price, justification for the love 
of Christ, through grace, through means of faith.f 
* The Church of France felt this necessity and duty, on the 26th 
of May, 1559, when, not with a great splendor and royal pomp as 
at Augsburg, but in silence, in gloom, in disgrace, even under the 
sword of her adversaries, under the bloody sceptre of Henry II., 
and Catharine de Medicis, the deputies of all the churches then 
established in France assembled at Paris, " at Paris," says Theo- 
dore Beza,J because it was the most suitable city for the secret 
reception of so many ministers and elders ;" when having pene- 
trated into the capital through the arquebusiers of Henry II., these 
ministers and members of the church came four days in succession 
to a house in the faubourg St. Germain, by stealth one after the 
other from different quarters, and remained there for the confes- 
sion of their faith, " in the midst of stakes and gibbets," says ano- 
ther historian, " which were raised in all quarters of the city ; "§ 
when surrounded by the spies of the clergy, the emissaries of 
parliament, the lances of the king, obliged almost to hold their 
breath for fear of being betrayed, the Church of our fathers in 
France, protected by its humility, put forth that beautiful confes- 
sion of faith which its ministers and elders carried into all their 
provinces and published in the light of the sun, in presence of the 

* Qsov dXrjOivdv bfxoovaiov ra irarpi. Symb. Nic. 

t Fourth article of the Augsburg Confession. 

% Hist. Eccles., page 109. 

§ Hist, de l'edit de Nantes, Vol. i., p. 18, 



AND HER VOCATION. 57 

satellites of Rome, and upon the ashes of the martyrs, saying, with 
a voice whose accents sound even to us : We believe that from 
this corruption and general condemnation in which all men are 
plunged, God receives those whom in his eternal and immutable 
counsel, he has elected by his own goodness, in our Lord Jesus, 
without consideration of their works. We profess that Jesus 
Christ, God and man in one person, is our entire and perfect pu- 
rification, and that we have in his death full satisfaction to release 
us from our trespasses.* 

Yes, my brethren, it is thus that in all times the Church has 
found courage to confess her faith, in obedience to her Master, and 
to make a good confession before many witnesses. 

Shall not then the Church in our day do the same ? Shall she 
remain silent ? Has not Christ been crucified for her ? or has she 
not faith enough to know she ought to proclaim it ? More than a 
century has elapsed since the confession of faith in Christ — the 
God-Saviour has been destroyed in this Church of Geneva; a few 
months ago she again took up her abode in the Church of the 
Canton of Vaud. In almost all places the confessions of our fathers 
are overthrown or neglected. The Church is now in the midst of 
interminable rubbish. Ruins, ruins, everywhere ruins. Oh ! while 
the enemies are so active to destroy, why should the friends of 
Jesus be so slack to build up ? If they have gagged the mouths of 
our fathers, so that they should no longer speak of their ancient 
faith ; if they have put them, so to speak, a second time to death, 
shall our mouths — our lips remain immovable and silent ? What ! 
because those arms, which presented to the world the confession 
of the (( Word made flesh," have three centuries been stiff in death 
and sleeping in the sepulchre ; because those eyes, which gazed 
with gentleness and boldness on kings and executioners, have for 
three ages been closed and wasted away ; because those feet which 
ran when necessary to the stake rather than not confess Christ, 
are unjointed, broken and scattered ; because those lips that cried 
in the midst of the mob and the flames, " Emmanuel ! God with 
us !" are closed, fleshless, and for three hundred years have been 
mingled with the dust, shall we, in our days, shall we do nothing, 
confess nothing, say nothing ! Oh, dry bones that we are ! Let 
us renounce the name we have to live, since we are dead. Let us 
sleep in the grave since we speak no more than do its silent tenants. 
This Church which reposes in the bosom of the earth awaiting the 
cry of the archangel and the voice of the Son of Man, would start 
from her very dust if she could know the lukewarmness of the 
Church of our day. These courageous dead would rise from their 
sepulchres and address us. " We had arms to act and lips to speak 
with. Do you possess them to keep silence ? Have you not 
heard then those august and fearful words, which make us trem- 
ble even in our graves : ' He who will not confess me before men, 
I will not confess before my Father which is in heaven.' " 

My brethren, a confession of faith is necessary to manifest the 

* Confession de foi des Eglises ref de France. Art 12, 17, etc 
3* 



58 THE CHURCH 

unity of the Church. Unity is a commandment which our Master 
has left us. We cannot throw it off from us. It is not, however, 
by an earthly leader, by a worldly hierarchy, by an uniformity, of 
worship, of liturgy, by crosses, mitres, censers, it is not by all 
these things that the unity of the Church is manifested ; she leaves 
to the world these miserable elements. The true Church of Christ 
has no other bond than the unity of her faith and her confession, 
in love and holiness of life. With her, all externals, which men 
regard of so high importance, are altogether secondary. All is free 
for her, saving her Jesus. When Rome points to her false and dead 
unity, the Church of Christ is to present a true and living unity ; 
a unity and not an uniformity. Yes ! to this dead uniformity of 
Rome, similar to the uniformity discernible in the parade of the 
armies of the kings of this world, let us reply by a vast and unani- 
mous confession of the Lord our Righteousness, like that which 
angels make, prostrate before the eternal throne. The former is 
the unity of the children of this world, but the latter is the unity 
of the children of Heaven. What an admirable unity was that of 
the Church at her great awakening in the sixteenth century ! It 
is not a servile uniformity ; there is liberty in all things where 
freedom is proper, but there is likewise a sublime and imposing 
agreement in the confession of the truth, come from on high. Take 
the confessions of Germany, of Switzerland, of Belgium, of France, 
of England, of Scotland, everywhere the same faith, the same 
God , the same Christ, the same salvation. In the Church of Rome 
"the principal thing" is the men, the priests, the bishops, the 
ponthTs; and the unity consists in being united to them. In the 
evangelical Christian Church the principal thing is faith, the doc- 
trine of Heaven, the truth of God, that is to say, God himself, and 
in her view unity consists in the unanimous confession of this 
truth. Every Church, which ceases to find her unity in the con- 
fession of the same doctrine, and makes it to consist in union with 
the leaders or the assemblies which direct it, may still bear the 
name of Protestant, but has clothed itself by these means with the 
essential and distinctive nature of the papacy. It is not walls 
which are soon to fall, it is not certain leaders, ephemeral beings 
who will to-morrow be in the depths of the grave, that are essen* 
tial to the Church. The adorer of the virgin and of the saints in 
Spain or in Italy submits to the Pontiff, who by chance is found 
at the head of the most ancient Church of the west ; and the Turk 
at Constantinople prostrates himself in the ancient porches of Jus- 
tinian and Theodosius. Stones are nothing, men are nothing, 
Christ is all. To suppress the unity of the faith and the confes- 
sion of Christ, is to suppress the Church. Doubtless there may 
be Christians scattered here and there, there maybe walls, priests, 
ruins ; but there is no Church ; for there can be no assembly of 
God there, where there are only foreign, perhaps conflicting ele- 
ments, without any divine and eternal bond to hold tfrem together. 
My brethren, a confession of the faith of the Church is needful, 
for by this confession the Church is led on to victory. What are 
its " weapons — mighty to the pulling down of strongholds," as St. 



AND HER VOCATION. 59 

Paul says — what are these weapons ? They are the confession of 
Jesus Christ. Behold the only strength of the Church ! What will 
become of her, if the confession of faith is wanting ? A fortuitous 
aggregation of certain societies almost civil, of which each follows 
its own good pleasure or the will of its masters ; a tree, deprived 
of its common trunk, and whose branches separated, dispersed — 
are only ready to wither and die ; a body, from which the head 
has been severed, and whose members are scattered to the four 
winds. How, in such a state as this, can she obtain the victory 
over her adversaries ? Alas ! this is too much the condition of the 
evangelical Church at the present moment ; and it is this which 
gives us such lively alarm in view of the dangers which menace 
her. But let the Church revive and build herself up in her most 
holy faith, and, in her beautiful unity, let her clothe herself with 
the strength and life which should belong to a great community ; 
let her join together the ends of the earth, to unite with one heart 
and one voice to confess Jesus her God, — these are the trumpets 
before which would fall down the fortresses of incredulity and the 
walls of Rome. " The people," says the Scripture, in the history 
of Jericho, " having shouted with a great shout, the wall fell down 
flat, so that the people went up into the city." 

And will any of you, my brethren, repeat the worldly maxim, 
that there must be some bond in the Church, for without it she 
cannot exist (an acknowledgment, which it is well to remember) ; 
but that this bond is found in the commonly admitted principle— 
that the Holy Scriptures are the only source of our faith. " We 
have no need," says one, " of confessing any particular doctrine ; 
the Bible— nothing but the Bible ; behold our confession." Is, 
then, the Bible simply a certain volume of a certain binding, and of 
a certain form, in which are found only blank pages ? The liberty 
of examination and progress, adds another, — this constitutes our 
Church ; we have no necessity for doctrines, — each minister can 
have his own, and may preach them at will. Thus, then, my 
brethren, the poor Christian flocks will be delivered to every 
imagination which may pass through the brains of their ministers. 
Every church may be called to change her religion as often as it 
changes her pastor ! When a new minister shall come into a 
curacy, a new religion will come with him into the village ! One 
will preach Protestantism, another Anabaptism, a third Socinian- 
ism, a fourth Universalism, a fifth Roman Catholicism, and, in 
fine, what not ?— a sixth Judaism, a seventh Mahometanism, — for 
Judaism has more foundation in the Bible than the most of these 
doctrines, and Mahometanism has a more explicit faith irk Jesus 
than Socinianism itself. And all this ought to be for the advan- 
tage of the poor parishioners, obliged, as they are, with their 
children to assume all the doctrines of their masters in the same 
manner as valets assume successively the livery of the houses they 
serve. But at least the latter are obliged to change only their 
habits while in your deplorable system, that will be the true faith, 
— that is to say, the faith which saves unto eternal life — which 
must be for ever changing in the souls of the believers. 



60 THE CHURCH 

But is not the liberty of examination, proceed they, is not pro- 
gress, is not research sufficient ? Doubtless we need examination 
and progress, but we need sound ones, and such as produce the 
fruits of salvation and life. With you these are only phrases under 
which you conceal your indifference. What signifies, I pray you, 
your examination, which discerns nothing, and retains nothing*? 
Of what consequence is your research, which, ever searching, 
never finds anything ? What signifies your progress, if, like the 
traveller in the fable, you are for ever travelling and never arrive 
at the goal ? For observe, that in this miserable system, although 
it may be enjoined on the Church to seek her true doctrine, it is 
forbidden her ever to find it. The moment she has found it, and 
consequently proclaimed it, that moment the system will be de- 
stroyed, for she will possess a doctrine and will enter into the truth 
of the Lord. 

No, my brethren, it is impossible that the Church should have 
meditated during so many ages on the oracles of God, which make 
wise the simple, and should not yet know what is found therein. 
It is impossible that the Church should believe in the Scripture, 
and yet be ignorant of what the Scripture says. The Church 
knows from the beginning ; she knows from Paul and Peter ; she 
knows from Athanasius and Augustine ; she knows from Luther 
and Calvin ; she knows at this moment, everywhere, in all time, 
in every clime ; what she believes, what she rejects, what she 
needs, " God manifest in the flesh." And if there are, alas 1 
some doctors, some churches, who have withdrawn from this 
glorious and consoling confession, it is only men have fallen away, 
— the confession is lasting. The grass wi there th and the flower 
thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endure th for ever. 

Thus then, my brethren (and this is our conclusion), let a coura- 
geous confession of the Lord rise from the midst of the ruins heap- 
ed up in the field of the Lord, and let a mighty voice go forth liv- 
ing and faithful from the very bowels of the revival. But, you 
reply, do yon then maintain that the Church in our day ought to 
confess in an authentic and universal manner its faith as she did in 
the 1 6th century ? 

And why not, my brethren ? Are we then among those who 
think a commandment of God, obligatory in one age, is not equally 
so in another ? I do not say that the form ought to be that of the 
16th century; it may be quite another; not perhaps a confession 
made once for all, but frequent and repeated confessions ; not per- 
haps confessions written with paper and ink, but living confes- 
sions made with the lips and in the life. " Every age has its pecu- 
liar mode of confessing Jesus Christ, just as every age has its pe- 
culiar mode of persecuting his confessors."* 

I acknowledge with joy that some mouths have already spok- 
en ; that some mouths yet speak. But here I lay down this sim- 
ple proposition, that the Church, everywhere in the earth, if she 
truly awaits her Leader, ought to confess with an unity and an 

* Quesnel, 



AND HER VOCATION. 61 

universality, greater than she has ever yet exhibited, that Christ is 
truly the Saviour to the glory of God the Father. 

But you will still rejoin, this has reference to ministers ; you 
should preach to them and not to us. What ? Do the ministers 
constitute the Church ? This is only true in the language of the 
Papacy. You are the Church, and your duty as well as ours is, 
to confess Jesus Christ. When the Church confessed her faith at 
Augsburg before Charles V., she did it only by her laity. Princes 
would not relinquish this honor to theologians. Will you now 
renounce the same honor ? Be then, my brethren, confessors of 
Jesus Christ ; first as individuals, as souls called from darkness 
into the marvellous Kght of the gospel, and who show forth the 
virtues of him who has bought them, by their words, in their 
lives and in all their actions. 

Be confessors of Christ, my brethren, but let your confession be 
nourished in faith and in the life of the soul. Confession can be 
free and sincere without, only as sanctification advances within. 
A confession with the lips, without the renunciation of self, with- 
out life in the heart, is hypocrisy, is an abomination before God. 

Be confessors of Jesus Christ, my brethren, but confess him 
with wisdom and charity, without a useless affectation of singular- 
ity, without placing too great an importance on secondary objects, 
without forgetting to watch with care over the dispositions of the 
heart. Your father or your mother perhaps demand of you an 
act of conformity to the world ; you refuse ; you do well; but if 
you do so, failing in reverence or gentleness towards them, you 
sin against the Lord. 

Be confessors of Jesus Christ, my brethren, but confess him will- 
ingly with boldness, with joy, not with that timidity, that con- 
trite and mournful air, with which Christians are sometimes re- 
proached. There is joy in the harmony of an identical and uni- 
versal faith, but there is sadness in the discord of human opinions. 
You have nothing to fear. " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus 
is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God:" and " He 
that is in us, is greater than he that is in the world." 

Be confessors of Jesus Christ, and let each fulfil this duty in the 
situation in which God has placed him. Let the magistrate con- 
fess Christ in the council ; let the mechanic confess him in the 
workshop, let the man of business confess him in the midst of 
his occupations, let the laborer confess him in the field, let the mo- 
ther of the family confess him in her house, let the soldier confess 
him under arms, let each one, whatever may be his situation, 
regard it as a holy place, in which he is called to confess the 
Lord ? 

Young men, who have come hither from different countries, 
having quitted anew the paternal roof, to resume grave studies,* 
be confessors of Jesus Christ ! Renounce the world and the flesh ; 
be not disciples and servants of human masters, be not high in 
your own esteem ; not only belong to Jesus but belong entirely to 

* The students of the Theological School. 



62 THE CHURCH 

him ; confess Jesus in your intercourse with this people, and one 
day as lights of the Church in the midst of the world. 

But we hold, my brethren, to individual confession. Every- 
where in the works of God we find union, harmony, and we see 
great things effected by them. In our mountains one drop of 
water detached from the glacier unites with another ; streams 
join with streams, torrents mingle with torrents, and these united 
waters form those magnificent rivers which flow from afar through 
the plains, and bear life and fertility upon their bosom. In the 
morning of creation, when " the sons of God shouted for joy," a 
world came at the bidding of the Eternal to place itself near an- 
other world ; " the morning stars sang together;" and the heavens 
began that harmonious course of the universe which fills the soul 
with astonishment and adoration. When the beloved disciple 
was ravished in spirit, so that he saw " a throne and some one 
set upon the throne, a voice joined to another voice, many angels 
around the throne united their accents, and they were many mil- 
lions, and every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, 
and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are 
in them replied, and all their voices united were as the voice of 
many waters and as the voice of a great thunder." Oh ! should 
not we, the redeemed of the Lord, do the same ! Let the voices 
of those who are here below, strangers elect and dispersed in the 
world, unite together in holy enthusiasm and holy courage to ren- 
der glory to Jesus Christ. Let us for once go out of our petty indi- 
vidualities, let us not content ourselves with our feeble voices 
scattered here and there; that there may be upon the earth a 
mighty concert, a glorious harmony to celebrate Him who has 
redeemed us by his blood. Then would the world, which until 
now has been regardless of Christ, be constrained to listen, and 
the voice of the Church would become so powerful that all the 
kindreds of the nations should awaken and prostrate themselves 
before the Lord. 

Oh ! that my voice could reach beyond this narrow place ! that 
it could be heard in the vast temples of this city in which in times 
gone by resounded the faithful voices of our fathers ; if reaching 
farther on it could reach the church of Vaud, the church of France, 
the universal church of the Lord, and say to the great assembly, 
Let us confess the Lord as the Lamb who was slain, and who is 
worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, 
and honor, and glory, and blessing. 

Lord ! I cannot do this ; my weak voice must remain in this 
hnmble chapel, but thou canst accomplish it ! Speak, Lord ! 
speak, and may thy servants hear ! Dispel the illusions, rend the 
veils, break with thy powerful hand the chains which bind gene- 
rous souls whom thou hast called unto liberty; grant that none of 
thy servants, " consulting flesh and blood," may open their ears 
to the thousand voices of the world which insinuate themselves 
to put to silence thy confession, while they shut their ears to thy 
voice, which cahVupon them to confess thee before men. The 
day advances, the time is ripening for the manifestation of thy 



AND HER VOCATION. 63 

salvation; call thy Church, cause each of our souls to hear thy 
awful voice, before that solemn approaching day, when seated 
on the clouds thou shalt say to many : <• Father ! they were ashamed 
of me, now I am ashamed of them." Oh ! that this disgrace may 
never be ours, but rather may we be of those to whom thou wilt 
say in the day of thy glory : I have seen thy testimony, I have 
seen thy humiliations, I have seen thy fidelity, thy courage, the 
confession of my name which thou hast made ! I declare them 
now before the assembled universe ! Enter, faithful servant, into 
the kingdom of thy Lord ! Amen ! 



THE 



CHILDREN OF GOD. 



TRANSLATED BY M. M. BACKUS, 



THE CHILDREN OE GOD. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT GENEVA, JULY, 1829. 



" He came unto his own. and his own received him not; but to as many as received him 
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name : 
which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
—John i. 13, 12, 13. 

The Lord had chosen the people of Israel in order to keep alive 
the knowledge of Himself and the hope of His salvation, while 
all other nations walked in darkness. He had brought them out 
of Egypt, established them in Canaan, preserved them distinct in 
the midst of other nations of the earth ; and, when the appointed 
time was come, in which the Lord should humble. Himself, and 
appear as a man among men, He comes at first, says the Gospel, 
unto His own — He comes into the midst of His own people, just as 
a man, arriving in a city, goes first to his own dwelling, and not 
to the abode of strangers. But His family would not recognize 
Him ; His own received Him not, they repulsed Him, and crucified 
the Lord of glory f Yet there was a chosen remnant in Israel, who 
received by faith Jesus the Lord. Soon, from among the nations 
of the earth, an immense number cried Hosanna to Him who 
came in the name of the Lord, and all Jews, Greeks, Scythians, 
bond and free, were made children of God. I have sanctified my 
king in Zion 9 .the mountain of my holiness ; I will give him the hea- 
then for his inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for his pos- 
session. 

But does not the same thing still happen unto ourselves ? 
Doubtless there are many who receive Christ the Lord and enter 
into the family of God ; but how many reject Him ? how many re- 
main sadly without Him ? Listen but to the conversation of men ; 
open the writings which find the highest favor with them ; con- 
template the course of the world ; above all, study your own 
heart. Have you there received Jesus Christ? Oh, my dear 
hearers ! we would put forth a feeble effort to give you a better 
knowledge of the riches, that you have, perhaps, hitherto de- 
spised. We announce to you to-day, then, a fact, which has bet- 
ter claims on your attention than every other fact which is pre- 



68 THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 



fn I 6 if r ,s »7 ° f the world " Christ has com e to establish, 
m the midst of all human families, a family of God. God, by one 
vast adoption, assumes all who believe fo/his sons and IK 
You can be accounted of this number ; it is only necessary thf you 
tinly receive by faith Jesus Christ. Oh, man ! my brother— thou 

C me b unfon P tf d int ° th f femi 'y ^ God, and y thou wxlt not! 
i.et me unfold this important subject, presenting, as it does 

SSSSSM aU ItS diVhle grandem ; and > above all-Tet us seek 
to dissipate he numerous errors in which it has been enveloped 

?c fht'LZ, c ° me , unt0 " s to " da y b ,y Thy word ! Come Thyself 
to the door ! Knock-and may we hear Thee, may we open to 
Thee, and may we receive Thee with joy ! May there be manv 
souls who will enter into Thy house, Uo ma^be TecWd il 

ever w^th er a ,I thl 6 WT °{ G ° d ' t0 pmise Tbee now and fo ' 
5S^V&!^^ m named in the havens and 

NECESSITY. 

" And first we address ourselves to you who, recognizing the 

hum P an re vL aS th fn WOrd ° f ^.^ " God is the ?a g ther of me 
human race. All men are His children, without exception 
without distinction of religious faith, Jews Christians, Mahome-' 
clans, Pagans-we have all but one Father, and we are aUb^th- 

Before refuting your opinion we ought to grant that it is 
grounded upon various foundations. It is true that God shows 
his paternal goodness to all men, and makes his sun to rise unTn 
the good and on the wicked : it is true that we are all Drethren°n 
Adam, that is to say, we have all lost the holiness and Stive 
glory of our nature, and form by our birth but one family, Exposed 
to sm, to the miseries of life and to death. It is also true that God 
cl S ,JZ- leSP £ C i 0i nat T S> of ^ligions, the seTor the vsTble 
*™t fi^ hlch ° ne » born ; and when a soul awakened by the 
sound of the good news of Christ believes on Him that hemighlhave 

SS^wKT^'T 1 Wk \ J0 Z Wha / eVer m ^ be theTandaTd 
fJicf u* ? *f as born ' wh ether of abominable idols, of the 

false prophet of Rome or the glorious standard of the Reforma! 

ofpersolT ** *** "* * " C °* B ™ ** trUth that God has n ° ™Pect 
But Christ has actually been given to the world to create in it 
* family of God in quite another sense ; in a sense much more fo- 
t mate and true than it ,s of the human species in genera The 
word of God which is the truth, proclaims to us that to be children 

Turn 1 our tex't rf nt *"* fr ° m ^A Sim ^ «***»» °/^ 
A?J° °F text i T Z a f ma ™) as received him to them gave he power 
to become the sons of God. Those, then, who have not received him 
or will not receive him do not enjoy this right. The meanin "of 
the Word is clear Refer to the twelfth Chaf ter of Mattffew For 

m TZ7: haU , d °! he W f ° f ?y Fa ^ which if m heavet,thTsames 
my h other and sister and mother. Whosoever . therefore does not the 



THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 69 

holy will of the Everlasting Father, is not the brother, nor sister of 
Christ, and consequently, not the child of God. In the epistle to 
the Romans, chapter viii : For as many as are led by the Spirit of 
God,^ they are the sons of God. Those, then, who are not led by the 
Spirit of God, but by their own spirit, are not his children. It is im- 
possible to receive the Word without receiving also its conclu- 
sions. 

You well understand, in the interpretation of our human laws, 
that when the child of any man is his by adoption it is because he 
is not so by nature. Why not apply to the things of God, this plain 
common sense which directs us in the things of this world ? 
Christianity proclaims to the sinner who believes a free and gratui- 
tous adoption into the family of the God of heaven. Man is then, 
by nature, out of the family of the Most High, and he can enter 
therein only by an act of mercy and of love from Him, who would 
be his father. " God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made 
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we 
might receive the adoption of Sons .... Wherefore thou art no 
more a servant but a son. 5 ' Oh ! if men by nature are children of 
God, what children, great God, are like thy children ? Are those 
thy children in whom there is so entire a forgetfulness of their 
Father ? We speak not solely of the nations who prostrate them- 
selves at the feet of idols, but of ourselves by our own nature ; 
do we not constantly forget the great God in all our actions, all 
our words, all our thoughts, and seek only ourselves and our own 
good? Are these indeed the children of God, having the nature 
of their Father, who are prone to pride, to envy, to hatred, to 
wrath, to covetousness, in a word, to sin which God abhors ? 
What family, Lord, should be like thy family ? What ! shall all 
this corruption, all these vices, all these crimes, all those abomi- 
nations which one dares not even to name, which are found in the 
world, shall all these exist in thy family ! A family so full of dis- 
orders would be disowned even by men; and should this be the 
family of God ! thine, oh God ! who art of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity. No, my brethren, these fine words, that we are all the 
children of God, are the declamations of a carnal sensibility, but 
are not according to the truth ; they are the words either of fraud 
or error. Yes, we are by birth children — but learn from the word 
of God himself what kind of children : children of disobedience, 
as says St. Paul to the Ephesians, children of wrath, he continues 
disobedient, foolish, says he to Titus, living in malice and envy, hate- 
ful and hating one another. There is no difference, we have all 
come short of the glory of God. 

THE MEANS. 

But here, my brethren, I discover among us other thoughts and 
another class of persons. You, my dear hearers, far from think- 
ing so lightly of becoming a child of God, you imagine you can 
never become one. To be a son, a daughter of God! what a privi- 
lege, you exclaim ! what a happiness ! what a glory ! but how 



70 THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 

dare we pretend to a relation so touching and so beautiful with 
the great God of the universe ? Perhaps there are those who can 
thus aspire, but for myself, I cannot. I am too insignificant, too 
sinful — I remain afar : and I bow my head in the dust before the 
face of the King of kings. Who can abide in the day of his com- 
ing, and who can stand when he shall appear ? 

Oh ye, who are filled with such fear, haply the word of your 
God does not make the thing as impossible as does your own 
heart. You would have reason for such apprehensions if this 
privilege were to be gained by yourself ; but know that this adop- 
tion into the family of God is a gift, a free gift which the God of 
Heaven makes by his beloved Son : To as many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of God : — gave, says 
the Word, not sold ; given as a tender father makes a gift to his 
son, or as a rich man, powerful and good, makes the gift of adop- 
tion to the poor abandoned child, whom he thus makes rich by a 
simple act of his great compassion and of his great love. Why 
would you refuse to God the privilege of giving, of giving gratui- 
tously such great blessings ? 

But how, you say, can I be assured that this pardon is truly 
given; that this salvation is truly acquired; that God adopts for 
himself a family on earth ? How ? Because God himself has 
spoken it; because He from whom such grace proceeds has 
caused it to be announced and published in all places ; because 
he declares it to you by his ministers, by his sacraments, by his 
Word ; by his Word which is the truth. Assuredly that which is 
spoken by the Eternal, the True, is well worthy of our belief. If 
some unnatural wicked children, having been banished from the 
paternal roof, loaded with a father's curse, should soon after learn 
the news of that father's death, with what trouble — with what an- 
guish would the thought of that parent's curse fill their souls ! 
But suppose that a friend should come unto one of these sons and 
should place in his hand a letter, a will written by that father, in 
which were written these words : " I declare unto my children, 
into whose hands these lines may fall, that before giving up my 
last breath I withdrew from them all my curses ; I pardon them 
everything, and from my death-bed 1 raise my hands to heaven for 
them, to bless them and constitute them anew my children, my 
heirs." The child considers these lines ; he exclaims, " It is my 
father's writing ! it is his signature, it is his seal ! it is himself who 
has said it ! How can I doubt ? I am blessed. I am saved. My 
father has caused me to attain unto this assurance. I am at peace. 
I believe the testimony of my father." 

Unto you likewise I bring a letter, my brethren ! a letter writ- 
ten by Himself, furnished with his signature, and impressed with 
his seal : a letter which he has sent from heaven to earth ; a letter 
of pardon: a letter of amnesty: a letter of adoption: a letter of 
peace. Listen ! listen to that which is written in this letter by the 
finger of God himself. In this letter it is written, — I take the eter- 
nal word as witness : Jesus saves his people from their sins. There is 
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jems. — 



THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 71 

Having been made perfect, Christ has become the eternal salvation unto 
all them that obey him. God gives eternal life, and this life is in his 
Son. He who has the Son has life. To as many as receive him to 
them gives he power to become the sons of God. Will you not believe 
the testimony of God? This testimony written in a Testament 
which each of you possesses in his own dwelling, which you can 
read and read again. Will you refuse to believe a Testament dic- 
tated from the cross, sealed with the blood of its author ? Alas ! 
can you believe the testament of a father, and will you not believe 
that of God ? a will which puts you in possession of so glorious 
an inheritance ! " If Ave receive the witness of men, the witness 
of God is greater ; for this is the witness of God, which he hath 
testified of his Son." 

If, then, you have believed this witness, and have thus received 
Jesus Christ, you are become in God, my brother, you are be- 
come his child ; already, here below, you belong unto him ! And 
when He shall call you from this earth, it will be a father's voice 
to call you home to himself. You will enter then into the pater- 
nal mansion in the heavens. Oh what a glorious prospect ! what 
happiness to you is given ! 

If you have received Jesus Christ, the God Saviour, who has 
borne in himself the curse of sin, and who has humbled and van- 
quished it by His divine power, why can you still doubt that you 
may become children of God ? Do you speak of your sins ? True, 
but Christ, who is now your Saviour, has borne them, says the Scrip- 
ture, has expiated them on the cross: he has scattered them as a 
cloud, he has cast them into the bottom of the sea. And of them not 
the smallest part shall ever be brought to light. 

Do you speak of your insignificance, of your nothingness, of the 
misery of this human nature which is your's ? True : but Christ, 
the Son of God, has taken this humanity ; he has become the 
Brother of man ; the human nature has been glorified by the divin- 
ity of Him whom it has clothed. It may belong to God and enter 
into heaven. What is there in this which need astonish you? 
The Son of God is become the Son of man : cannot the son of man 
become then the son of God ? He who was in heaven is become 
a member of the family of the earth : may not then he who is on 
the earth become a member of the family of heaven ? And if the 
Son of God was not ashamed to call himself our brother in the 
midst of our misery, will he be ashamed to call us his brethren in 
the midst of all his glory and his immortal grandeur ? Behold what 
manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called 
the sons of God / 



" Certainly," you say, my dear hearers, " certainly, we admit all 
these things; we are born in the Christian church ; we believe in 
Jesus Christ : we think that it is through Him we can call God our 
Father." It may be so. Meanwhile, however, we invite you can- 
didly to examine yourselves, to see if you truly possess the faith 



72 THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 

of which the Scripture speaks. You imagine that one can receive 
Christ and become a child of God by faith, without this faith pro- 
ducing any change in the heart. This is the third error that we 
would refute : for as many as receive him, says our text, are born not 
of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, 

The children of God are not born of blood : whatever the nation, 
the sect, the family in which they are born ; whether of the seed 
of Abraham, the children of the holiest man on earth, tracing back 
their descent from generation to generation, to kindred the most 
distinguished for their faith, even all these cannot constitute one a 
child of God. The children of God are not born of blood. 

They are not born of the will of the flesh. It is not our own wis- 
dom, our own strength, that can make us the children of God. 
The flesh, that is, our fallen and corrupt nature, has neither the 
will nor the power to become such. That which is born of the flesh 
is flesh. 

They are not born of the will of man. No man can assure the 
conversion of the dearest relatives, or of the most beloved friends. 
No minister of the Gospel can choose or even conjecture before- 
hand the souls, to whom his ministry will be blessed. The wisest 
advice, the powerful exhortations of men, will not avail, unaccom- 
panied by other influences, to form a single child of God. They 
are not born of the will of man. 

Of what then are they born ? Our text says, they are born of God. 
There is something new-born in them, created by God. Adop- 
tion is not here, as is frequently the case in the world, a simple 
affair of titles and honor ; but it is accompanied by a real change 
in those who are adopted. It may happen in the world, if a good 
man adopts a wicked child, that this adoption, under the divine 
blessing, may change the character of the child ; but that, which in 
human adoption may or may not occur, always takes place in the 
adoption of God. The child of God receives, not only the name, but 
the nature of his Father. Every man, who is adopted of God, re- 
ceives at the same time a new spirit, and becomes a new man. 
What shall hinder it ? God, who in the beginning created out of 
nothing the heavens and the earth, can, doubtless, create in man 
a new heart, and make of him a new creature. According to His 
mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the 
Holy Ghost. 

And why, my dear hearers, do you not feel that, if you ought 
to belong to the family of God, you ought also to have the spirit 
which animates this family, the holiness which is its nature, the 
filial confidence and the love, which are its sweet privileges ? If 
a man of high rank in society adopts a child, educated in rude 
and coarse manners, he requires that it assume those habits and 
manners, which belong to the new state of life, into which it is 
introduced. If a very learned man adopts a child who has lan- 
guished in ignorance, he will give it the instruction necessary to 
its new situation. If, then, a change is necessary in order to a 
reception into the families of men, is it a strange thing that it 
should be required of one when he enters into the family of God ? 



THB CHILDREN OF GOD. 73 

No, there must likewise be a change, but a change greater than 
that of outward habits and human institutions ! There must be 
a new heart. There must be a new nature. There must be a 
first birth to enter into the family of man. There must be a second 
birth to enter into the family of God. Therefore, if any man be in 
Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all 
things are become new. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he 
is none of His. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
again he cannot see the kingdom of God, 

duty. " 

But, when once the child of man has become, by an adoption, 
full of grace, and, by a new birth, a child of God, what ought he 
to do ? What are the errors which those ought to shun, who have 
entered into their Father's house ? My brethren, we may all un- 
derstand these things of which we speak ; the spirit of adoption 
whereby we cry Abba, Father, may have been shed abroad in our 
hearts. But, subsequently, under the seduction of the sin which 
doth so easily beset us, we have exalted ourselves because of our 
privileges, we have gloried in ourselves, we have lived barren 
and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ; we have not 
brought forth fruit unto God, and have not given diligence to make our 
tailing and election sure. 

This is the last error I have to notice. What remedy is there 
for such an evil ? This is it : consider the right to be called chil- 
dren of God, as a high privilege, as being more than treasures, more 
than the glory of the world, more than perishable crowns. But ap- 
ply your heart constantly and specially, to ponder the duties that this 
right imposes on you, and seek from Him, who works in us both 
to will and to do, the power to fulfill them 

And what is your duty, children of God ? It is to become like 
your Father. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children, says the 
Scripture. The imitation of vicious men and the corrupt world is 
forbidden to the children of God ; the imitation of the virtues of the 
just is on the contrary recommended ; but the imitation of the most 
sublime of models, of the primitive and perfect goodness of the 
most holy God, is the most excellent which the child of God can 
propose to himself. It has been said : The essence of religion is 
to imitate Him, whom thou adorest. Oh, my brethren ! what sig- 
nifies all our petty adoration, all our outward worship, if we strive 
not to attain this glorious conformity ? The first impulse on look- 
ing at a child, is to seek in it some features of its parent. Oh my 
soul ! shall some features of my Father be sought for in vain, in 
thee ? Christ is the brightness of the glory of God, the express image of 
his person. Form thyself, my soul, after this divine model. A child 
reserrfbles its father not only when there is a similarity of features 
and demeanor, but still more when there is a likeness in the heart 
and in the dispositions of the soul. Above all, we should bear 
this resemblance to our Heavenly Father in our hearts. When the 
spirit of God governs us, it sweetens our character and our dispo- 
4 



74 THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 

sition. Let ns learn of Christ who is meek and lowly in heart ; let 
us walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and be holy, for lam 
holy, saith the Lord. The son who resembles his father, increases 
in that resemblance as he advances in years ; if we are children 
of God, let us grow from day to day in his likeness. " But we all 
with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are 
changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the 
spirit of the Lord." 

What is your duty, children of God ? If you are children, you 
ought in all things to do the will of your Father. Fathers ! do you 
not exact this of your children ? There are often many wills in 
an earthly family, but in the celestial and eternal family there is 
but one will. All the blessed inhabitants of heaven perform with 
joy and with a single heart the will of their Father : you can some 
day be united to them, only by doing on earth, what they do in heaven. 
Let us then apply ourselves to do it well. Let us be honest in 
our bearing towards all men. Let us be orderly in everything 
that regards our temporal interests, yet without the love of 
riches, without avarice, without vain glory. Let us carefully dis- 
charge all the duties of our station. Let us be active, obliging, 
useful, ready to render favors, looking not only on our own things, 
but also on the things of others. Let us be content in the lot whieh 
our good Father has assigned to us, patient in trials, giving him 
thanks in all things. Let us use with eagerness and joy, the 
means of sanctification that he offers us, praying with persever- 
ance, reading the Scriptures, and offering to Him in our houses and 
in the bosom of our families, spiritual sacrifices ; for why should 
we despise these gifts of our Father ? We know, alas ! that here 
below, we cannot do perfectly the will of our Father, that we meet 
obstacles without and within, and that we make but feeble pro- 
gress. Notwithstanding all this, it is upon earth that this work 
must be begun : while it is yet day that it should be pursued : Not 
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom 
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. He 
that doeth the will of God, abideth for ever. 

Finally, children of God ! beloved of the Father ! it is your duty 
to think of your Father and of the riches unto which he has made 
you heirs. In proportion as you approach the great day in which 
yon will be put in possession of your incorruptible inheritance, 
have more elevated, more holy thoughts, and become more desi- 
rous of heavenly things. One frequently sees a great heir before 
the period of his majority arrives, think very little of what he is to 
become, and entertaining feelings very little in accordance with 
the grandeur of his future state. But as he increases in years, he 
becomes more grave, and acquires the consciousness of what he is. 
Children of God ! heirs of eternity ! the hour of your entire re- 
demption draws nigher every day. In an instant the thread of 
your life may perhaps be broken ; a few hours may perhaps find 
you before the throne of God. Your majority approaches : the 
period of your emancipation is not far distant. Think of these 
things ! Let your affections be set on things above. Let your conversa- 
tion be in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord 



THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 75 

Jesus Christ. " The children of God," said a faithful pastor of the 
fold of Christ, " have three birthdays. They are born at first of a 
natural birth ; they weep , but their parents rejoice. Afterwards by 
conversion, they pass from a state of nature into the life of God ; 
then they often weep bitterly, but the angels in heaven rejoice. 
Finally comes that which we call death, and this the primitive 
Christians regarded as the true birth of the children of God : there 
is still much weeping and grief, but when all is accomplished, the 
joys of eternal life begin, and there are no more tears for the chil- 
dren of God." 

We have all partaken of the first birth : have we had a part in 
the second ? Are we children of God or are we not ? This is the 
solemn question that the Word calls us to make. If we are not, 
God grant, we may become so this day ! May we receive Jesus 
Christ ! May we believe in his name, that we may have Life ! 
May we be born again ! 

To you, who, hearing these words, may have been convinced 
in your hearts that you are not yet children of the adoption, and 
who ask us, how may we become such, we reply : take cou- 
rage and assurance in the grace and in the love of Christ. He 
seeks your salvation ; for it is He, who has already given you the 
desire to be saved. Since he has given you the will, will he not 
give you the fulfillment ? Will he not complete that which con- 
cerns you ? Oh, do not lean upon an arm of flesh ; separate your- 
self from every hope of salvation founded in yourself, and cast 
yourself into the arms of the pure grace of Christ. Fear not lest 
he reject you, for He is come to seek and to save that which is lost, and 
He has himself said ; Whosoever cometh unto me I will in no wise 
cast out ; and every one whom my Father giveth me, cometh unto me. 
Go then to Him in the silence of your closet, thinking how import- 
ant it is that you should meet Him and should find Him before 
death overtakes you. Go to Him in prayer. He comes himself to 
you, opens his arms and says : Come, I will give peace to your soul f 

Then, when the King of terrors presents himself to you, fear not, 
children of God ! Death will be for you a glorious birth. A child 
of dust dies to earth : a child of glory is born for heaven. A child 
re-enters His Father's house, to receive the blessing of the Most High 
and the righteousness of God his Saviour. " Oh death ! where is thy 
sting ? Oh grave ! where is thy victory ?" " Lift up your heads, ye 
everlasting gates ! " To Him who has become the Author of our 
eternal salvation, and who has given us the power to become 
sons of God, heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, be 
rendered the praise, the honor, the glory forever ! Amen. 



CONFESSION 



OF THE 



NAME OF CHRIST 



CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 



41 Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my 
Father which is in Heaven." — Matthew x. 32. 

It is now three centuries since the princes of Germany, assem- 
bled in imperial Diet within the city of Augsburg, boldly and 
solemnly confessed Jesus Christ and His word, before the emperor, 
the princes of the empire who still remained under the dominion 
of Rome, and the legate of Rome ; and in the presence, as it were, 
not only of all Germany, but of the whole world. That day was, 
is, and ever shall be, till time is no more, one of the brightest days 
of Christianity. That day, therefore, all the evangelical churches 
of Germany, and some even of other countries, responding to the 
call of their princes and pastors, celebrate, with offerings of 
thanksgiving and praise, its third glorious centenary. 

" May the commemorative festival," says one noble voice, in 
assembling all who are subject to his laws, " of the presentation 
of this testimony to the Christian faith, which still exists, and must 
for ever continue as true and firm as it was three centuries ago, 
and in the spirit of which I write with all my heart, contribute to 
strengthen and animate true faith in the evangelical Church, to 
inspire all its members with unity of spirit, true piety, and Christian 
love." * 

Will not you also remember, Protestant Christians of France ? 
Have you not participated in the blessings of that glorious day ? 
Were you not born — do you not repose — are you not combating 
this very hour under the spotless banner of the gospel of Christ, 
which those noble men planted on that memorable day in the 
presence of their enemies ? Is it not your belief which was then 
confessed before the universe by those illustrious princes and 
pastors ; and do you not march with unfurled colors to the same 
holy war in which they then took up the powerful weapons of 
the word of God ? 

But, alas ! no. We walk not as then they walked ! Ours are 
" the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees ;" and the 
heroic courage which formed, in those blessed days, the glory of 
the Church of Christ, seems to have forsaken her. Therefore, 
especially ought we to celebrate that day ; so that seeing our- 
selves, as it were, surrounded " with so great a cloud of witnesses 

* Order of His Majesty, the King of Prussia 



80 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST, 

for the truth, of magnanimous confessors of the cross of Christ," 
who " through faith subdued kingdoms," and " waxed valiant in 
fight," we, ourselves, may " fight the good fight of faith." Stand- 
ing fast in one spirit, they strove together in that great day for the 
faith of the gospel, in nothing terrified by their adversaries. 

Followers of Christ ! you are called to do likewise. The times 
in which you live are not less remarkable than those ; and the 
same courage is indispensable. Need I tell you, my dear hear- 
ers, that there is no allusion here to combats waged with carnal 
weapons ? Need I tell you that we have nothing to do with con- 
tests inspired by violence or hatred ? Doubtless, this is unneces- 
sary ; and were it not so, the example which is about to be offer- 
ed to you would sufficiently enlighten you on that point. 

As the events which the Evangelical Church celebrates this day 
are not sufficiently known, our design is to retrace them, and 
afterwards draw from them such instruction as they offer. 

An historical discourse is contrary to our usual mode of preach- 
ing, but all that serves to edification is suited to the Christian 
pulpit ; and, if we require precedents and examples, Scripture fur- 
nishes us with abundant and illustrious ones. Was not the ser- 
mon of Stephen, the first martyr, an historical discourse ? Are 
not most of the discourses of St. Paul, in the Acts, historical dis- 
courses ? What the Holy Spirit has adjudged to be good, we may 
not estimate otherwise. " These things," say the Scriptures, 
" were written for our examples." 0, Holy Spirit ! who didst 
animate in those days the heroes of the faith, kindle, we beseech 
thee, the same flame in our hearts ! 

The Emperor Charles V., whose dominions were undoubtedly 
the most extensive that any prince ever ruled — embracing a part 
of Europe, America, and other quarters of the world — and who, 
as has been said, never saw the sun set on his vast empire, hav- 
ing, in 1530, subdued his enemies, resolved to examine into the 
religious reformation which had taken place in Germany, and to 
stifle the, so called, heresy. 

He caused himself to be solemnly crowned on the 24th of Feb- 
ruary, his birth- day, by the Roman Pontiff, and then remained for 
some time with him in the same palace. The Emperor there pro- 
mised the Pope to annihilate Protestantism. He even pledged 
himself, as it appears, to use, if necessary, violence and extreme 
measures — this, at least, was the request made -of him. 

At this news, some advised the evangelical princes to meet 
Charles, sword in hand, at the foot of the Alps, and to prevent 
him from entering Germany until he should grant them full reli- 
gious liberty. But this was mere worldly counsel, and the great 
reformer, Luther, whom so many are pleased to represent as a 
man of violent temper, succeeded in silencing these rash counsel- 
lors ; " For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty 
through God." 

The Emperor, however, finding it expedient to try first the 
efficacy of pacific means, convoked an imperial Diet at Augsburg^ 



CONFESSION OP THE NAME OF CHRIST. 81 

and invited all the princes and states of the empire to be present. 
Several, recollecting the violence of the enemies of the truth, 
which had been exhibited, among other occasions, at the Coun- 
cil of Constance, in the torture of the early reformers, entreated 
the Elector of Saxony, the head of the Protestants, not to go in 
person to Augsburg. But the Elector determined to accept the 
Emperor's invitation ; he desired to confess Christ in the imperial 
presence. He invited Luther, Jonas, Pomeranus, and Melanc- 
thon, four of his greatest theologians, to draw up for this purpose 
a confession of the faith of the evangelical party ; and, having 
ordered prayers for a successful result to be offered in all his 
states, he set out, the 3d of April, on his journey to Augsburg. 

Many princes, nobles, counsellors, and theologians accom- 
panied the Elector. The same spirit animated them all in this 
solemn path. Luther preached frequently during the journey, 
strengthening, by his exhortations, the faith of these noble cham- 
pions of the gospel. 

At Weimar, they all partook together of the communion ; at 
Coburg, the Elector parted from Luther, and ordered him to re- 
main there during the session of the Diet. A castle, crowning 
the summit of a mountain was his home ; twelve knights guard- 
ed it night and day, but the servant of God had a more secure 
defence, even the Lord, whom he praises in a beautiful hymn 
composed at that time, beginning with these words — 

" How strong a fortress is our God." 

The Elector was the first of all the princes to arrive at Augs- 
burg, to the great astonishment of the many who supposed he 
would fear to present himself. Soon, however, the electors, 
princes, deputies, bishops, and a multitude of soldiers, crowded 
into this city, filling it with all the pomp of worldly splendor. 
«« Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing ? 
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel 
together, against the Lord, and against his anointed." 

In the midst, however, of all the tumult which surrounded 
them, the zeal of the ministers of the Word of God who accom- 
panied the Protestant princes, relaxed not,* they preached the 
Word, and shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God. 
Their preaching produced the effect which ever follows the Word, 
when presented in any spot for the first time. The Word of God 
is the cause of discussion, said Luther. " This is a hard saying, 
who can hear it ?" Their discourses were complained of, though 
they declared in them only the simple truth without controversy. 
Letters on the subject were addressed to the Emperor, who still 
remained at some distance from Augsburg. In reply, he signified 
his opinion that preaching should be suspended until the doctrine 
was examined and approved. The Elector consulted Luther, and 
the reformer gave a fresh instance of his moderation, advising 
that the preaching should be discontinued if the Emperor persist- 
ed in his demand ; " For," said he, " the Emperor ought to be 
4* 



82 CONFESSION OP THE NAME OP CHRIST. 

master in his own city." The Elector, however, could not bring 
himself to accede to the wishes expressed to him. " It would be 
contrary to my conscience," replied he to Charles, " to forbid the 
preaching of the Word of God ; especially in these times, when 
we so greatly need all the consolation and assistance which it 
offers. " " Unless thy law had been my delight, I should then 
have perished in my affliction," said another prince, the royal 
prophet David. 

In the meantime, while Melancthon, the friend of Luther, 
assisted by other theologians, was incessantly occupied at Augs- 
burg in drawing up the confession, which was to be presented 
to the Diet by the Protestant princes, Luther was suffering greatly 
at Coburg, both in body and mind, and had already chosen in his 
desert (as he called it) a place for his grave. The Elector sent 
him some remedies for his malady, and wrote to him at the same 
time in words full of affection. Luther replied by a letter admira- 
bly suited to console this Christian prince, amidst the formidable 
combat in which he was engaged with the enemies of the Gos- 
pel. "Truly, without cause," he says, "you have graciously 
condescended to be so anxious about me ; three weeks have pass- 
ed so quickly, that they seem to me scarcely to have been three 
days. But it is your Grace who is now in a painful and danger- 
ous position. Oh, may our good God, who is in heaven, succor 
you, so that your heart may remain steadfast and patient in the 
grace which he has so richly manifested to us. It must be only 
for the love of God that you endure so many trials and dangers, 
since all these princes and furious enemies can find no other fault 
in you than that of loving the pure and living Word of God, and 
acknowledge that, for the rest, you are a gentle, pious, and faith- 
ful prince. And it is certainly a strong evidence that God loves 
you, since he not only gives you His holy Word freely to enjoy, 
but accounts you worthy also to endure in its cause so much en- 
mity and odium. It is this which sheds such light and peace over 
the conscience ; for to have God for one's friend is better than to 
have the love of the whole universe." 

Strengthened by such words, the Elector awaited the Empe- 
ror's arrival, which was postponed time after time. 

At length, on the fifteenth of June, every preparation was made 
for his solemn entrance. The greatest magnificence was displayed 
on this occasion, doubtless with the design to impress the Pro- 
testant princes with an exalted idea of the power and majesty of 
the Emperor. 

The electors and princes, with an immense crowd, went forth 
to meet him. When they had arrived within fifty paces of the 
Emperor, they all dismounted. The Roman legate seized the mo- 
ment to pronounce the papal benediction. The Emperor, and all 
his followers, received it kneeling ; but the Elector, and all the 
Protestant princes, remained standing — proving thus, in the very 
outset, their faith and their firmness. They resumed their route. 
On arriving at the Bishop's palace, where the Emperor was to 
lodge, all were invited to enter, except the noble Elector of Saxony 



CONFESSION OP THE NAME OF CHRIST. 83 

and his generous brother in the faith. They suffered with all joy 
the reproach of Christ, and soon gave a new proof of their immova- 
ble courage ; for, King Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, having 
required them, in the name and presence of the Emperor, to sus- 
pend the preaching of the Gospel, and to participate in the pro- 
cession of the Holy Sacrament, which was to take place the next 
day, the Margrave of Brandenburg, standing forth in the name of 
all, exclaimed, " Rather would I kneel to receive my death-blow 
at your Majesty's hand, than to deny my God and his Gospel." 

The Emperor having repeated his demand, by a deputation, the 
same evening, the Margrave and the other princes repaired the 
next morning, at six o'clock, to the Emperor's palace, and replied 
— " We will not sanction, by our presence, such impious human 
traditions, utterly opposed as they are to the word of God and the 
commands of Christ. So far from it — with one voice, we declare 
that we desire to see these doctrines of men utterly banished from 
the Church, and the yet uncorrupted members of the body of Christ 
sheltered from this mortal poison. Let not your Majesty be 
offended if I decline to comply with your wishes, for it is written 
that it is better to obey God than man. Wherefore, for the sake 
of confessing the doctrine which I know to be the voice of the 
Son of God, immutable and eternal truth, I am ready to face all 
dangers, and even death itself, with which, as I hear, those are 
threatened who believe in this wholesome doctrine." 

Glorious courage ! noble renunciation of the world and self ! — 
would that it might inspire our hearts also ! "He that loveth his 
life shall lose it : and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep 
it unto life eternal." 

The procession took place, but none of the evangelical princes 
engaged in it. They displayed the same firmness with regard to 
the Gospel. " The Word of God," they said, " cannot be bound; 
to arrest it — to fetter it, would be a sin against the Holy Ghost. 
Besides, being only poor sinful men," added these magnanimous 
princes, " we need the preaching of this divine word to enlighten 
and console us. We cannot do without the daily nourishment of 
our bodies — still less can we bear to be deprived of the word of 
God ; ' for man doth not live by bread only, but by every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' " Thereupon, Charles 
the Fifth caused a herald to publish, with the sound of a trumpet, 
in the city of Augsburg, that no clergyman should preach there 
any more, unless by special permission from the Emperor. There 
was no alternative but to submit. " Thus," wrote the Elector of 
Saxony to Luther, "our Lord God is commanded to be silent in 
the imperial Diet of Augsburg." Happy will the Church be, when, 
from the greatest to the least, all shall know the value of the pure 
and faithful declaration of the gospel of our Lord Christ ! " More 
to be desired than gold — yea, than much fine gold : sweeter also 
than honey and the honey- comb." 

At last, the Diet was formally opened on the 20th of June. The 
opening address unveiled the hostile designs of Charles. It was, 
as it were, a declaration of war, Then was it necessary to " be 



84 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 

strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might — to be able to 
withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." On 
leaving the assembly, the Elector of Saxony invited all the princes, 
his brethren in the faith, to assemble at his hotel, and there ex- 
horted them to stand steadfast in a cause which was that of God 
himself, and of the faith as it is in Jesus. The next day, very 
early in the morning, he dismissed all his counsellors and ser- 
vants, and this pious prince passed the whole day in his chamber, 
drawing courage and consolation from the Psalms of David, and 
supplicating God to grant him His assistance and His grace for 
the glory of His gospel. 

The Protestants obtained permission to read their confession 
publicly on the 24th of June, but on that day other affairs occu- 
pied ihe Diet too long. Their confession was demanded in writ- 
ing. They insisted that it should be read in full assembly. The 
Emperor acceded to their wishes, and all awaited with impatience 
the following day, which, to all appearance, was to decide the 
destiny of the invincible truth. 

In the meantime, Luther, at Coburg, took to himself the whole 
armor of God ; he praised God without ceasing — he read His holy 
word, and was filled with courage, hope and joy. Not a day 
passed in which he did not spend at least three hours in prayer. 
He conversed with God, his servant tells us, as with his father. 
Once he was overheard praying thus in his chamber : "J know 
that Thou art our good God and Father ; therefore, I am sure that 
Thou wilt destroy the persecutors of Thy children. If Thou dost 
not, the danger concerns Thee as well as us. The whole affair 
is Thine ; we have done but what we ought to have done ; and 
Thou, oh, kind Father, wilt protect us." Had I been in the place 
of our friends," said he to this same faithful servant, " I would 
have replied to our adversaries, « If your Emperor will not suffer 
the empire to be divided, neither will our Emperor (the Lord Al- 
mighty) suffer the name of God to be blasphemed. Glory, then, 
if you will, in your Emperor; we, too, will glory in ours. We 
shall see who will remain masters of the field.' " 

The wise, and gentle, and apprehensive Melancthon, at Augs- 
burg, shared not the assurance of Luther ; he was full of fears 
and anguish. His friend, Camerarius, often surprised him in 
tears. Luther endeavored to inspire his friends with the same 
confidence and courage that nerved his own soul. In writing to 
Jonas, from his desert (for thus he dated all his letters from Co- 
burg), he said: " It is philosophy that torments Philip (meaning 
Melancthon), and nothing else ! for our cause is in the hands of 
Him who can say, with the power of majesty, € Neither shall 
any man pluck them out of my hand.' There I desire to leave 
it. I have had many affairs in my own hands, and have lost 
them all ; but all those that I have confided to Him, I still pos- 
sess securely ; for truly God is our refuge and strength. ' Who 
ever trusted in Him, and was confounded ?' So Wisdom speaks, 
and elsewhere says, ( Thou, Lord, wilt not forsake those who put 
their trust in Thee.' Let us defy our adversaries, strong in the 



CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 85 

might of the Lord Jesus, for since He lives, ' we shall live also,' 
even in death ; and He will protect and bless the widows and 
children of those who confess Him at the price of their lives. 
Since He reigneth, < we shall also reign with Him.' Already we 
have begun to reign. Oh ! if I were summoned to Augsburg, 
how quickly, by the grace of God, I would be there ! May His 
presence attend thee !" 

Still later, he wrote thus to Melancthon : " Grace and peace be 
given you in Christ I In Christ, I say, and not in the world. 
Amen. Why wilt thou thus unceasingly torment thyself ? If our 
cause is not good, forsake it ; but if it is, why will we make God 
a liar, when he tells us to be tranquil and * of good cheer ?' ' Cast 
thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee,' are His 
own words ; and again, ' The Lord is nigh unto them that are of 
a broken heart.' The issue of these events torments you, because 
you cannot foresee it. But I tell you that if I could foresee it, I 
would not interfere in it — still less would I have begun it. God 
has placed our cause in a place which you will find neither in 
your philosophy nor in your rhetoric. That place is called Faith, 
and there are found all those things which we can neither see 
nor understand. He who wishes us to see and handle things, as 
you do, has for his reward only tears and anguish of heart. If 
Christ is not with us, where in all the universe will you find 
Him ? If we are not the Church, where then is the Church ? Is 
it the Duke (of Bavaria), Rome, or the Turk ? If we have not 
the word of God, who has it ? And, c if God be for us, who can 
be against us ?' If we fall, Christ falls with us, and Christ is the 
Sovereign of the World. He has said, ' Be of good cheer, I have 
overcome the world ;' and I know that it certainly is so. Why, 
then, do we fear the conquered world, as if it were the conquer- 
or ? Oh ! precious word of truth ! One would go to seek it on 
one's knees, even to Rome or to Jerusalem ; and, because we 
have it and may use it any-moment, we lightly esteem it. That is 
wrong. I know it proceeds from the weakness of our faith. Let 
us pray, then, with the Apostles : ' Lord, increase our faith.' 
' Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not 
fear.' « No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper — 
saith the Lord.' " 

At length arrived the memorable 25th of June, 1530 — that day 
of triumph for the Church. At three o'clock in the afternoon, 
three centuries ago, all the electors and representatives of the 
empire repaired to the palace where the Emperor lodged, in the 
chapel of which the Confession was to be read, in order to avoid 
the concourse of the people. The Emperor commanded that 
none but the princes and representatives should be present, but, 
notwithstanding his orders, the palace-court was soon filled to 
overflowing. The two chancellors of the Elector of Saxony, 
strengthened by the hand of the Lord, outstretched to bless and 
protect them, advanced into the centre of the chapel, bearing 
duplicates of the Confession, one in Latin and the other in German. 
The Elector represented that, as they were in Germany, he hoped 



86 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 

his Majesty would grant permission to read the Confession in the 
language of the country. The Emperor consented. One of the 
Chancellors then pronounced a short discourse in the name of 
the Protestants; and, at its close, the other began to read the 
Confession. This he did in so loud and distinct a voice that not 
a word of it was lost by the immense crowd in the palace-yard. 
The reading lasted two hours. Heard amidst the deepest silence, 
it produced a most powerful effect. No one had expected to 
hear such words as then met their ears. We cannot now repeat 
them to you, my dear friends ; there are one or two principal 
points, however, among them, which claim especial attention in 
our day, when so many have lost all recollection of what that 
faith is which was " once delivered to the saints." 

" We confess and teach," said the evangelical princes of Ger- 
many, in the presence of this assembly of kings, who listened to 
them attentively, " that there is one God, and in this single and 
same divine Being, three persons, God the Father, God the Son, 
and God the Holy Spirit, a divine and eternal essence, infinite in 
wisdom, goodness, and power, the Creator and Preserver of all 
things visible and invisible. 

"We confess and teach, that, since the fall of Adam, all men 
are born in sin — that is, from their birth, they are filled with evil 
desires and inclinations, and can have, by nature, no true piety, 
no true love of God, no true faith in God. We maintain that this 
inbred sin is an actual sin in them, and certainly condemns, and 
consigns to eternal death, those who are not born of water and 
of the Holy Ghost. 

"We confess and teach that God the Son became man ; that he 
closely united the two natures, human and divine, in one person, 
which is Christ — very God, and very man — and who, being truly 
born, crucified, dead, and buried, was a sacrifice, not only for the 
inbred sin of man, but also for all other sins, and thus satisfied 
divine justice. 

"We confess and teach that this same Christ, having descend- 
ed into hell, on the third day arose from the dead, ascended into 
Heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God, where He ever 
lives and reigns over all creatures ; that he sanctifies, by the Holy 
Spirit, all who believe in Him — that He purifies, strengthens, and 
consoles them ; gives them life, and all manner of graces and 
blessings, and protects and defends them against sin and the devil. 

" We confess and teach, that men being born in sin, not obey- 
ing the law of God, and being incapable by nature of loving God, 
we cannot merit the pardon of our sins by our works or by any 
satisfaction, and are not justified before God on account of our 
works, but are justified for Christ's sake by grace, through faith, 
when our conscience is appeased by the promise of Christ, and 
believes that remission of sins is truly given unto us ; that God is 
favorable to us, and gives us eternal life, for the sake of His Son, 
who reconciled God unto us by his death. 

" We confess and teach that such faith must bring forth good 
fruits, and produce good works ; that we ought to do all the good 



CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 87 

works which God has commanded from love to God, without, 
however, trusting on them for justification, for when we have 
done all things, we still must say, * We are unprofitable ser- 
vants.' " 

" This," added the Chancellor of Saxony, before proceeding to 
the enumeration of the abuses of the Church of Rome, " this is 
the summary of the doctrine preached in our churches, for in- 
struction and consolation, as weJl as for the sanctification of be- 
lievers." 

After having finished this memorable reading, the electoral 
chancellor went forward to place the two copies in the hands of 
the imperial secretary. But the Emperor, who had not once lost 
sight of them, extended his own hand, and received them. The 
Protestant representatives then returned thanks to Charles, to 
King Ferdinand, and all the other princes, for the attention with 
which they had listened to their memorial. 

A solemn act was terminated. The adversaries, and even seve- 
ral of the bishops, were struck with the admirable exposition of 
the Christian faith which they had just heard ; and who knows 
but that the impression which it made on Charles may have been 
revived in the convent of St. Just, and surrounded his dying bed 
with unspeakable consolations ? Copies of the Confession were 
immediately sent to all the Courts of Europe, and thus a know- 
ledge of the evangelical faith and the seeds of divine truth were 
scattered abroad even to the most distant lands. 

As for the heroes of the faith who had so boldly confessed 
Christ and Him crucified, from this hour a new sentiment animat- 
ed them, a new feeling filled their hearts. They had confessed 
Christ before men, and felt happy in the blessed assurance that 
He would " confess them before His Father who is in Heaven." 
" The spirit of glory and of God" rested upon them. They had 
conquered — they had put to flight all the hosts of the enemy ; an 
everlasting joy was upon their heads. From that day, the destiny 
of the evangelical Church was secured, and the Lord proclaimed 
over it anew, " The gates of hell shall never prevail against 
thee." 

Such was the confession of the name of Christ in the sixteenth 
century. Shall not this glorious name be confessed in the nine- 
teenth with the same boldness and fidelity ? Oh, my dear hearers, 
shall the adversaries of Jesus, who could not prevail in that day, 
triumph over us now, while Christians remain silent ? This same 
voice of the son of God which the heroes of the faith heard, when, 
three centuries ago, they carried of! the palm of faithfulness and 
victory, speaks still in our day to His people, and proclaims, 
" Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess 
before my Father who is in Heaven." 

But can all now confess the name of Jesus Christ ? In order to 
confess Him, we must know Him, and all know Him not. The day 
which we commemorate presents to us an assembly in which 
were two entirely distinct classes of men ; and Jesus, in the dis- 
course from which our text is taken, declares to us that there are 



88 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 

those who confess and those who deny Him. A grand distinc- 
tion, a wide separation exists then between men. This is the 
first lesson to be learned from the picture placed before our eyes 
to-day. This separation which existed in the times of the Apos- 
tles, existed also at the time of the Reformation, when on one side 
we see those who made this noble profession of the truth, and, on 
the other, those who wished to crush it — and it exists still. We 
would not dwell now on the distinction established by varied 
forms of discipline and worship, for God is no respecter of per- 
sons ; but on that which is found in all nations and in every de- 
nomination, between those who reject the immutable truth which 
the Apostles and Reformers professed. It is an axiom universally 
recognized, and proclaimed by every philosopher, that, as there 
is good and evil, so there must be good and evil men, the just and 
the unjust, saints and sinners ; or, as the Scriptures emphatically 
express it, "the children of God, and the children of the devil." 

Christianity does but separate these two classes more widely, 
while declaring that they actually exist before God, and will re- 
ceive their reward. Him that confesseth me, I will confess — and 
him that denieth me, I will deny. And what saith the Saviour of 
the world, who is the truth, as to the relative number of each of 
the classes, which the word of God and the day we celebrate 
present to us : "Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the 
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many 
there be that go in thereat : because strait is the gate and narrow 
is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." 
These words were true three centuries ago at Augsburg, and they 
are yet true over all the earth. So, then, if there is now, as in the 
times of the Apostles and Reformers, a doctrine rejected by the 
world, by the lovers of the riches, honors, and pleasures of this 
life, a doctrine which the many refuse to embrace, which is con- 
sidered a strange thing, and is abandoned to a despised few, it is 
a strong presumptive proof that this doctrine is the truth. And if 
there is a mode of life which is considered too strict, too severe, 
which cannot be assimilated to the customs and tastes of the mul- 
titude, but is ridiculed and given up to a few, it is probable evi- 
dence that it is the true one. And if there is a Christianity against 
which all take up arms, which is rejected by all who are wise in 
their own eyes, and seek glory from men, and not that which 
cometh from God only, it would be reasonable to conclude that 
this was the gospel. 

If I go with the multitude, if I think as everybody thinks, if 1 
do as all do — well may I tremble ! for those are proofs that I am 
in the broad way which leadeth to destruction. 

" There are few that be saved," says one prophet ; " One of a 
city, and two of a family," says another. Oh, my soul ! thou art 
with God, or thou art far away from Him ! Thou art converted, 
or thou art not ! Thou dost either confess Christ, or deny Him ! 
One of these two sides thou hast taken, and which is it ? Art 
thou in the narrow path of life ? or art thou in the broad way to 
perdition ? Oh, my soul ! this is worth consideration. Examine 



CONFESSION OP THE NAME OF CHRIST. 89 

thyself; prove thyself; seek, and ascertain clearly what thou art. 
" Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." 

Dear hearer ! you, whose conscience witnesses, this hour, that 
you do not confess Christ — you do not know Him — you are still 
in the broad way — why will you not now be saved ? Why will 
you not this day be transported into the path of life, where the 
" fellow citizens of the saints" and confessors of Jesus Christ are 
found ? One thing alone prevents you, and that we declare to 
you ; it is your want of faith in the powerful, the life-giving name 
of Jesus. So long as you do not believe in this name by which 
alone there is salvation, your sins separate between you and God, 
and it is impossible for you to confess a name which has no glory 
in your eyes. But believe the word ; this is what it tells you (and 
in comparison with its teachings all else is darkness and error), 
" Christ who is the brightness of the glory of God, and the express 
image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his 
power, when He had by Himself /purged our sins, sat down on the 
right hand of the Majesty on high." Understand well what the 
word of God here declares to you. Christ has, not by an angel, 
or by any of the heavenly intelligences which He created, but by 
Himself, purged the sins of all who believe in Him; which is to 
say, He was purified, redeemed, and delivered them from their 
sins, as effectually as if they had never committed any. At the 
moment when Christ expired on the cross, being " made sin" for 
all, all the sins of his people, of every age and every nation, were 
blotted out. What ! could you believe that the Lord Christ him- 
self took the trouble to purify His people from their sins, and that 
there still remains something in them which defiles and hinders 
them from seeing God ? To use an illustration within the reach 
of all — if a mother has bathed her child in pure water, and has 
said to him, " Go, now, you are clean," her child believes her and 
goes to his play ; but if, to assure himself that it is so, he should 
go to behold his natural face in a glass, according to an expres- 
sion of Scripture, he would be insulting his mother, by thus ad- 
mitting the possibility that she could speak falsely. Well ! Christ 
himself, Jehovah, Jesus, says to the believer, " Go, thou art made 
clean — I have purged thy sins by myself, I have made an end of 
all transgression ; he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
life." And we will not believe this eternal word of truth ! we 
would make our Lord a liar ! Oh, my dear brother ! do you truly 
believe that Jesus is the Saviour — do you believe it in your heart, 
and confess it with your mouth ? Then do I declare to you from 
the everlasting gospel : '« You are clean." All your sins are for- 
given. You have found grace in the sight of God. '< There is no 
more condemnation" for you, says St. Paul. " You, who in times 
past were not a people, are now the people of God ; you, which 
had not obtained mercy, have now obtained mercy." Listen, 
then, to the voice of the Lord. He summons you to quit the stand- 
ard of error, that you may range yourself under that of truth. Go 
forth from the camp of His adversaries, and enter into that of His 
children and friends. Unite yourself to the holy band of His pro- 



90 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 

phets and apostles — to those illustrious princes and doctors, who, 
in the days we celebrate, confessed His name so nobly. There is 
not one of you who cannot do it, and that, too, this moment ; the 
door is open, wide open, for all. Oh, why will you prefer the 
sullied and perishing banners of injustice and unbelief to the pure 
and immortal standard of Christ? Behold, "the fashion of this 
world passeth away;" already its graudeur is fading, and soon 
will be no more. What will then remain to you ? " Wherefore, 
come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, 
and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will 
be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, 
saith the Lord Almighty." 

But, if you have ever known Christ, my beloved brethren, if 
you have enlisted in the army of the living God, what lessons 
the events of this day teach you ! Soldiers of Christ ! who fight 
under His eternal banner — all ye who know the Saviour — children 
of God — strangers, as the Apostle calls you, scattered throughout 
the world ! listen to the words of a poor, despised Man, who had 
not where to lay His head, but whom you will soon recognize, 
by the majestic authority of His language, as your Lord and your 
God ! " Whoever shall confess me before men, him will I also 
confess before my Father which is in Heaven." 

The confession of the name of Christ is, perhaps, still more 
necessary and more difficult in our time than it was in that of the 
Reformers. There was then but one adversary, fanaticism, or 
superstition ; but God, who willeth that all the enemies of His 
Church shall manifest themselves, that it may gain over them all 
a brilliant victory, has permitted a new and not less formidable 
adversary to spring forth from the age succeeding that glorious 
period : materialism or infidelity. Its deadly atmosphere is widely 
diffused, over the lowly as well as the lofty places of the earth, 
in the institutions of learning, in the workshop of industry, 
abroad in the country, at home in the fire-side circle ; it has 
mingled its poison with the very springs from which the people 
have been accustomed to draw refreshment and life. Satan dis- 
plays in our day the whole of his imposing army. With fanati- 
cism as leader of his left wing, and scepticism of his right, he 
aims at full victory over the high places of the earth, and the 
establishment of an undisputed empire. Who shall withstand 
him but you, scattered children of God, who have this promise 
from the Captain of your salvation, " The God of peace shall 
bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Therefore, we summon 
you, on this anniversary of a great victory, to one more glorious 
still. " Be of good courage," we say to you, as did the leader of 
the armies of Israel on the eve of a battle with the children of 
Amnion, " and let us play the men for our people, and for the 
cities of our God; and the Lord do that which seemeth Him 
good." 

" Does not all that is passing around you tend to animate your 
courage ? What if the enemy of God does multiply his forces, 
so long as Christ, the Head of His Church, the Captain of your 



CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST, 91 

salvation, lifts up still higher his standard against them? The 
soldiers of the adversary fill the air with cries of extermination, 
but the masses which they had heaped up to crush Him against 
whom they wage war, recoil upon their own heads, and"" the 
Lion of the tribe of Judah" crouches down in triumph over their 
ruins. Have you not countries under your own eyes, in which, 
a few years ago, no single tongue confessed the name of Jesus, 
now filled with His glory ? " There shall be an handful of corn 
in the earth upon the top of the mountains ; The fruit thereof 
shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like 
grass of the earth." 

The distant isles of the ocean are awaking, and stretch out 
their hands to you : there is a sound of life throughout the whole 
earth, as of some one collecting his hosts, and marshalling them 
for the battle. 

" Lord, in thy power's triumphal day, 

Thy willing people shall obey ; 
And when thy rising beams they view, 

Shall all (redeemed from error's night), 

Appear more numerous and bright, 
Than crystal drops of morning dew. n 

Content, then, oh children of God ! by confessing the name of 
Jesus. Oh, brothers, well beloved ! after having been saved by 
the Lord Jesus, it is our duty, as well as our highest joy and 
greatest glory, to be faithful to Him and to confess Him openly be- 
fore all men. Doubtless, you are not called to so solemn a con- 
fession as that which we celebrate to-day ; it is not to a pitched 
battle that the trumpet summons you ; but each one of you is to 
confess the Lord, in the peculiar circumstances amidst which 
God has placed him. There is an essential difference between the 
two periods that we are contemplating. At the time of the Re- 
formation, a few great names seemed to fill the whole field of 
battle ; but, in our day, the armies of the living God have no 
earthly commanders ; names are lost in a happy obscurity. One 
Captain alone appears at our head — and he is Christ. Oh, my 
brethren ! realize the responsibility which this imposes on you. 
You cannot now rely on a few illustrious leaders ; every one must 
fight at his post, as if on him alone depended the victory. It is 
not perhaps by great battles, but by a thousand private combats, 
that the King of Zion purposes to establish His kingdom. To the 
hands of each of you he commits a portion of its destiny. " God hath 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which 
are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are de- 
spised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to 
naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence." 
If God has placed you among cottages, confess Him among cottages. 
If He has placed you in the dwellings of the rich of this world, con- 
fess Him in the midst of abundance and prosperity. If He has placed 
you in the sanctuary, lift up your voice there fearlessly. If He 
has given to you the seat of the mighty, confess Him even upon 



92 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. • 

the steps of the throne, as did in those days the princes of the 
earth within the palaces of kings. Suffer no opportunity to escape 
you of faithfully confessing Christ in the heart of your family, 
in your daily life and conversation. " Sanctify the Lord God in 
your hearts ; and be ready always to give an answer to every 
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with 
meekness and fear." This is all that Christ asks of you, as one 
of his soldiers ; this is your armor for the glorious combat. His 
name alone, without any human help, gains the most noble vic- 
tories; His name alone overturns the empire of darkness, and 
scatters afar the powers of evil. " God hath given Him a name 
that is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things 
under the earth." 

Disciples of Christ ! the truths by which you are to gain the vic- 
tory over the world, and bring many captive souls to God the 
Saviour, are the same that the Apostles confessed, the same that 
the Reformers and illustrious princes confessed so courageously 
three centuries ago. Men change, but " Jesus Christ is the same 
yesterday, to-day and for ever." The Christ whom Paul, Peter, 
and John confessed, the Christ whom Luther, Calvin, and Beza 
confessed, is He whom you are to confess. Say, as they did, 
" We are sinners, and in ourselves condemned." Say, as they did, 
" We are saved by grace alone, by Christ through faith." Say, 
with them, " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God." Bear witness with simplicity and gentleness 
to all the truths contained in the Word of God, for it is the testi- 
mony of God himself. This is confessing Jesus Christ. It is not 
a doctrine of yesterday — it is an eternal truth which yon confess. 
Human doctrines have been ever changing, and scarcely any two 
of those floating around yon are consistent with each other ; but 
the truth of God is unalterable. You must expect that the Christ 
whom you confess will be still, as in ages past, to the world " an 
unknown God." Some around you will say, " These are old 
superannuated doctrines;" others, " These are strange novelties." 
Yes, it is an ever ancient truth which you proclaim, for it existed 
in the council of God before the creation of the world. And yet 
it is a truth ever new, for each time that it is manifested to the 
heait of the sinner, he begins to see things of which he had no 
conception before. Do not allow yourselves to be hindered by 
vain clamors such as these. Ever old, yet ever new, twice already 
has this same truth saved and renewed the world : it has proved 
itself, if I may so speak. Let us stand firm : a third time it will 
save it, and I hope for ever. " I know that my Redeemer liveth, 
and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." 

Forward, then, soldiers of the God of armies, and fight fearless- 
ly ! In our day, we must have resolution, strength, devotedness, 
and entire self-renunciation ; for, if the weapons which the world 
uses are more delicate and subtle than in the times of the Apos- 
tles and Reformers, they are so much the more formidable. The 
coldness and contempt of those who surround us, sometimes 



CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 93 

even our dearest friends, consume the heart with a keener an- 
guish than that inflicted by the flames of martyrdom ; and human 
opinion, the fear or the love of the world, has made more infidels 
than the sword of the executioner. 

Be strong, then, and steadfast, fixing your eyes on the certain 
triumph of the Lord's cause. The leader whom you follow has 
already conquered all His enemies — " He has spoiled principali- 
ties and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing 
over them, in the cross." The conversion and subjection of the 
whole world to Him is the subject of promise. " Yet have I set 
my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree : 
the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I 
begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for 
thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy pos- 
session." Already the King of the Universe is preparing all things 
for the accomplishment of this promise. Already do the Gentiles 
seek the root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to the peo- 
ple. Already does the Lord " set His hand again the second time 
to recover the remnant of his people" Israel. Already, in the bo- 
som of our fallen churches, the Lord Jehovah is everywhere 
forming for Himself a " willing people," and the " Bright and 
Morning Star" is rising to cast its holy beams over the earth long 
wearied of the dark and fearful night. Soldiers of Christ ! fight, 
then, the fight of faith with cheerful courage, knowing that the 
work, in which you are engaged is God's own, and that He has 
prepared a full and glorious triumph as its consummation before 
the foundations of the world. Let your hearts be filled with holy 
zeal. Be vigorous and energetic, w for God hath not F given us 
the spirit of fear, but of power ;" and " he that overcometh shall 
inherit all things, saith the Lord ; but the fearful and unbelieving 
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brim- 
stone : which is the second death." Believe, and hope, if need 
be, even against hope ; it is by faith that we obtain promises, 
subdue kingdoms, or stop the mouths of lions. 

Nevertheless, beloved friends, remember that the combat to 
which you are called is that of eternal charity. It is not by bitter 
zeal that you can promote the interests of the kingdom of God. 
What is the object you have in view ? Is it that you may be in- 
struments in God's hands for saving souls ? And how can you 
save souls, if you do not love them ? Remember how Christ, 
your leader, walked on earth, in whose footsteps you are to fol- 
low. He walked in love, and it is by love that he overcame the 
world and saved His people. " When he saw the multitudes" 
about Him, " He was moved with compassion on them, because 
they fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shep- 
herd." He " went about doing good." Oh, if we had more love 
in our hearts, what noble victories we should gain over the prince 
of the world ! How many souls would be saved from death ! 
Let us, then, oh, my brethren, love souls as Jesus loved them ! 
Let his spirit be our impulse and example. Never may we cry, 
" peace, peace, where there is no peace :" but let us beware, also, 



94 CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 

of all narrowness of mind — of all bitterness, contention, domineer- 
ing, and condemnation of others. Let us beware of trusting to 
ourselves ; but let us abound in confidence in the Lord Jesus, who 
is love. Let truth be, as it were, the body of the athleta of Christ, 
and charity his garment ; for God hath not given us the spirit of 
fear, but of love. 

And, finally, let us remember, in our confession of the name of 
Christ, that the war which we wage is that of sovereign wisdom. 
It is not by precipitancy, or natural zeal, that we can advance the 
Lord's kingdom, as " novices" may fancy, " being lifted up with 
pride," and therefore, says the Apostle, they may not bear the 
office of bishop in the Church of Christ. What an example of wis- 
dom our illustrious predecessors of three centuries past, have 
given us. Let us distrust ourselves. Whenever we go forward 
in our own strength, our own zeal, or our own wisdom, we injure 
the cause of Christ. Before taking the first step, always ask 
counsel of God. Be willing to wait, for this is a lesson which 
every servant of God must learn. Have a sound judgment in all 
things ; and endeavor to choose always the noblest end, and 
the most prudent and proper means for attaining it. " Let us 
not fall into the condemnation of the devil" (or calumniator). Let 
us have " the wisdom that is from above," which is not " earthly, 
sensual, devilish," but " is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and 
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without par- 
tiality and without hypocrisy ;" for again, as says the Apostle of 
the Gentiles, " God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of a 
sound mind." 

Ministers of the word of God ! you who are, in the strongest sense, 
my brethren, to you and to myself 1 would first of all address the 
word of exhortation. May we be found faithful in this combat 
of eternal love, to which we are called ! Oh, my brethren ! let us 
pray, much for ourselves, and much for one another. Let us be 
girt about with truth and charity. Let us " hold fast the form of 
sound words," which we have heard. Let us proclaim fearlessly 
the Divine testimony, declaring the whole counsel of God with 
clearness and fidelity ; " for," saith the Scripture, " if the trumpet 
give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the bat- 
tle ?" Watchmen of Zion ! let us blow the trumpet when we see 
the sword coming, that the people may be warned, and that the 
sword take not away their life. 

Pastors of the Lord's flock ! let us lead them to feed on the 
plant of renown which has been raised up for them, that they be 
no more consumed with hunger in the land. " Let us reprove, 
rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine," for, in doing 
this, we shall save both ourselves and them that hear us. 

Elders of our churches ! all you, who are called to labor with 
us — and you, earth's mighty ones ! follow the example of these 
illustrious princes whose fidelity and glory have been this day re- 
called to you. Learn from them that the doctrine of the truth is 
not the exclusive property of the ministers of the sanctuary, but 
that it belongs to you as well as to them, and that you, as we, 



CONFESSION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. 95 

are called to be its defenders. " Be not (ye), therefore, ashamed 
of the testimony of our Lord," but confess Him, as did this as- 
semblage of princes, before the world. And, as they were the 
strong support of the ministers of the Word, grant us also, on 
every occasion, your love, your sympathy, and your prayers. Be 
one in defence of the doctrine of the truths which God has en- 
trusted to our churches. Value the gift of a faithful minister as 
a very precious privilege. "We beseech you, brethren," says St. 
Paul, " to know them which labor among you, and are over you 
in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in 
love, for their works' sake. And be at peace among yourselves." 

And ye all, disciples of Christ, of every age, sex, and condition, 
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called ! Confess 
Christ in your words, with all humility and modesty ; but, above 
all, confess Him in your life. Comfort the feeble-minded, sup- 
port the weak, be patient toward all men. If thine enemy hun- 
ger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink. Ever follow that 
which is good, both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice 
evermore, showing forth thus the praises of Him who hath called 
you out of darkness into His marvellous light; and let your light 
so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and 
glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

The day shall come when the Lord's promise to you shall be 
gloriously fulfilled. He will come, with all His holy angels, and 
then will He say unto you, " Come, my brother, my sister, fear 
not; thou hast confessed me (on earth) before men, now will I 
confess thee before my Father which is in heaven. Oh, my Fa- 
ther ! he is mine — I have redeemed him — he is my friend, my 
brother. He has made a covenant with me by sacrifice. He has 
confessed me amidst the scorn of the world ; now do I confess 
him before Thy glory. Give unto him a white stone, and write 
upon him the name of my God. Ye everlasting doors, give way ! 
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord !" 



CHRISTIANITY 



CARRIED TO THE 



NATIONS OF THE EARTH, 



THE DUTY OP CHRISTIAN NATIONS. 



TRANSLATED BY M. M. BACKUS. 



TO THE COMMITTEE 

OP THE 

AUXILIARY SOCIETY OF BRUSSELS 
Sox tlje ^voyaQatiou of Cljristianitg in t\)c too Mtibm. 

THE AUTHOR, 

Brussels, March, 1830. 



A manuscript copy of this discourse falling into the hands of a 
friend of missions in Holland, he translated it by the author's con- 
sent, and published it in the Dutch language.* The author did 
not at that time think of publishing it in French. The work that 
it recommends having been established in a more regular manner 
at Brussels, by the formation of a Society for the propagation of 
Christianity in the two Indies, auxiliary to the two Evangelical 
Missionary Societies, established, the one at the Hague, the other 
at Rotterdam, the author thought that this discourse might per- 
haps contribute to enlighten the friends of Christianity and of 
humanity, concerning the end proposed by the new Society ; and 
it is consequently published in the language in which it was pro- 
nounced. That the Lord may make use of it, whether in our own 
or foreign countries, to kindle the zeal of some in favor of the best 
work which man can undertake, is the wish and prayer of his 
heart. The facts alluded to in this discourse, are drawn from the 
most authentic sources ; many have been extracted from the Let- 
ters upon India, by the missionary Ward, which have recently been 
translated into French. Some passages in this sermon were not 
pronounced in the pulpit, for fear of occupying a longer time than 
is usually accorded to the preacher. 

* Het Nut van Evangelisehe 2kndelingen ouder de Heidenen, en onze Verpligt- 
ing om deselve he Bevorderen, in octavo, Amsterdam, by Saaks, 1828, and 
more recently in 12mo. by the same publisher, under the title of Predikt het 
Evangelium alien Creaturen, 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT BRUSSELS. 



" And Jesus said unto them : Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
Gospel to every creature." — Mark xvi. 15. 

The work of publishing the Gospel among all the families of the 
earth, is the greatest and most glorious work which has ever been 
or ever will be undertaken. While many deep shadows still ob- 
scure the tableau of Christian society, and while the reign of self- 
ishness is still far from being over among men, yet we must 
acknowledge that the present is distinguished for its love of pub- 
lic good and for its humanity. Numerous associations have been 
formed in different countries, for objects of general utility. But 
all the associations, all the enterprises of the age, are but trifles in 
comparison with the magnificent undertaking of carrying the 
Gospel to every creature. The friend of humanity, before engaging 
in this, can make but feeble efforts ; but when he enters upon this 
chief work, he pays the debt he owes to his species, and has the 
glory of bearing in his hand one of the stones destined to raise the 
temple of the living God in the world. 

Is there anything called great among men, which the work of 
publishing the Gospel to every creature does not infinitely sur- 
pass ? Is it an association intended to release some unhappy 
beings who are pining away in dungeons, or under the pressure 
of some other misery ? That were a great work ; but the work of 
which I speak announces to a captive world the opening of the 
prison and the oil of joy for mourning. Is it a conquest, having for 
its end the deliverance of a people from the oppressors who deso- 
late them, and their restoration to their legitimate sovereign ? 
This were indeed a noble task ; but the work of which I speak is in- 
tent on conquering all the nations of the earth to their true and eter- 
nal King. Is it the giving to a whole people a legislation which 
will establish it in peace and prosperity ? But the work of which 
I speak bears to all nations the charter of the human race, the 
fundamental law of its happiness, a celestial legislation which 
alone can give them righteousness and peace. The work of Evangelical 
Missions is the most stupendous of all the works of benevolence 
in which men can engage, for it embraces the whole world ; it is 
the noblest, for the benefit which it confers is, of all those which 
man can bear to man, the most in harmony with the immortal na- 
ture of which our bodies are but the mortal tabernacles ; the most 



102 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

generous, since those to whom we send such gifts are unknown 
to us, differing from us in manners, in color, in language ; who 
can never testify their gratitude in person, whom we shall never 
see but before the eternal throne, whither the preaching of the 
Gospel may have brought them. Why does this restless age, 
which is so busy in a thousand different ways, take so small a 
part in this labor of love ? Why, when they lavish money in so 
many useless expenses, do they reserve nothing to assist those 
who would carry to Pagan nations the salvation of the world ? 
Some object that this work is not necessary ; we will reply by 
showing the magnitude of the evil. Others pretend that they do 
not know what remedy to apply to so great misery; we will pre- 
sent to them the means, ordained of God from the beginning of 
time. Others again object that they have no hope of success in 
this work ; and we will show them the success with which it has 
already been crowned. 

The Saviour, when he pronounced the words of our text, was 
standing on the Mount of Olives, after his resurrection from the 
dead. Beneath him was the earth which he had saved ; around 
him his weeping disciples, above him heaven and its glory, of 
which he was about to take possession in the name of his re- 
deemed. At this solemn moment, the last he was to spend on 
earth, he embraced, in the glance of his love, the world and the 
millions of people and generations whose eternal chains he had 
come to break, and giving to his disciples his last will, he estab- 
lished them perpetual executors of his love : " Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature /" 

Lord! grant us hearts attentive and obedient to thy Word, to 
meditate upon its holy obligations ! Amen. 

THE EVIL. 

And first, some say : "It is not necessary to send missionaries 
to Christian nations ; they are as well off as we are, and are like- 
wise just as happy. Would to God we had their innocence, their 
sweet and gentle manners !" 

It is not necessary ! It is impossible that it is a Christian who 
utters these words. Judge of this : the population of our earth is 
estimated at about ten hundred millions, of whom only two hun- 
dred millions are Christians ; one hundred millions are Mahomet- 
ans ; and nearly seven hundred millions are Pagans. Thus, every 
thirty years, eight hundred millions of souls, immortal as our own, 
leave the earth without having known the true God, He who has 
said : 1 am the uay, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto the 
Father but by me. Thirty years again roll round, and eight hundred 
millions more have followed the former to the grave — and thus 
generations on generations, millions descend sadly to the sepul- 
chre, in the midst of a dark and lamentable night. What truly 
Christian soul, after this solemn reflection, can inquire: "Is it 
necessary ?" 

But the state of the unchristianized world is such, that the 
friend of humanity, whatever may be his faith, ought to be the 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS, 103 

friend of the work which I commend. Everywhere j in the ab- 
sence of Christianity, the earth is filled with barbarism, with igno- 
rance, with horrid superstitions; for Christianity is not only the 
salvation of individual souls, it is also the strength and prosperity 
of nations. Among all these nations, is there one of which a 
false philosophy would undertake the defence ? Do they speak 
to us, for example, of China ? We will reply by showing them 
nine thousand children annually exposed, in the capital of this 
empire, to the most sorrowful death. Would they exalt Islam- 
ism, which unites the belief in the unity of God and the immor- 
tality of the soul, which they imagine sufficient for man ? We 
will show Islamism extended like a corpse, for several centuries, over 
the finest regions of the earth, changing, by its impure breath, 
these countries to a desert, and starting from its slumber only to 
scatter furiously around it fire and sword, and to spill in torrents 
the ancient and generous blood of the defenders of the Cross. 

No, my brethren, mild and simple manners are not found among 
Pagans ! 

Let us make the tour of the world, and see what is the condi- 
tion of the people among whom the evangelical missionaries 
labor, in whose behalf we to-day implore your alms and prayers. 
Do not fail to discover the horrors which appeal to your charity. 

What do we behold, if, leaving Europe, we first pass along the 
western shores of Africa, from whence are transported, with all 
their superstitions and terrors, those poor West Indian slaves, to 
whom our missionaries bear the law of true liberty ? We shall 
see negro kings celebrating cruel feasts, which they crown by the 
massacre of their prisoners of war and of their own subjects. A 
king dies atAkim: they break the limbs of three hundred and 
thirty-six of the females of his harem, then bury them alive. Do 
ambassadors desire an audience of these kings ? they must ap- 
proach the throne by filing across long rows of still reeking hu- 
man heads ; such is their method of displaying their magnificence, 
and of making their glory to shine forth. A king dies in the 
kingdom of Ashantee, on the Gold Coast : his orams, or servants, 
to the number of one hundred, are immolated on his tomb, and a 
great number of his wives submit to the same fate. The reign- 
ing king has recently lost his mother, and he testifies his filial 
grief and mourning by three thousand human sacrifices, to which 
each of the large towns are obliged to contribute a hundred vic- 
tims, and the smaller ones ten ; and, in these unhappy countries, 
the manners of the subjects are always in keeping with the man- 
ners of their rulers ! The Bushmen, of South Africa, live only by 
murder and robbery, and deliver themselves to the commission 
of the most horrible crimes. There, the mother, the tender mo- 
ther herself, forgets her child, and, like the beast, forsakes it. In 
moving about from place to place, these people frequently aban- 
don, in the desert which they quit, their aged parents and rela- 
tions : placing near them a little food and some shells filled with 
water, they salute them — and soon these unhappy beings die of 
hunger, or become the prey of ferocious beasts. I would ask 



104 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

you now, my brethren, is it necessary to go to the assistance of be- 
ings like ourselves, who cover with horror this earth, which is 
our common patrimony ? 

But leaving Africa, let us visit those countries of Asia in which 
some of our missionaries are found. What a spectacle is offered 
to us in India, the mother of civilisation, as she is frequently called ! 
What ideas have its inhabitants of the living and true God ? We 
see them bowing down before three hundred and thirty millions 
of idols. In the multitude of this army of idols, they know not 
in whom they ought to trust, whom they should obey. They kneel 
now before monkeys, and now before serpents, and again before 
vain shadows. Soon they fall down before the wives and daugh- 
ters of their cruel and licentious priests, adoring them w 7 ith abomi- 
nable ceremonies, not fit to be described by a Christian tongue. 
Finally, when they have nothing else, they make divinities of their 
holy books, and prostrate themselves before their vedas and their 
shasters f " Everything is a God for them, but God himself!" 
Wretched people ! your gods are monsters, your priests seducers, 
your holy writings codes of indecency, of fraud, of vengeance, of 
murder, your heaven itself an infamous house of prostitution ! 

And how do they wash away their sins ? At the close of the 
day, numerous bands precipitate themselves into the river Ganges, 
persuaded that its waves will purify from all evil ; while others, 
to obtain the pardon of their sins, occupy themselves day and 
night for years, in repeating the names of their protecting deities. 
But in the midst of all these useless names, there is not heard 
that only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved ! 

But perhaps the domestic sanctuary will offer more inviting 
scenes to our hearts ? No, and this is a solemn truth : the domes- 
tic circle, which gives to life all its charms, does not exist aside 
from Christianity. Mahometans, Pagans, are alike ignorant of it; 
and the most unnatural sentiments supply its place. Full one 
half of the human race, that which God created to be a compa- 
nion of man, is degraded to the condition of slaves, and even lower 
still. 

j Among many of those nations, the birth of a daughter is a fam- 
ily misfortune. Among one of the tribes of India, the Rajapoos, 
girls are put to death by their fathers soon after their birth. On 
one occasion, a father, less barbarous than his fellows, could not 
resolve to destroy his tender infant ; he hid her in a house, where 
she grew up until the age of ten or twelve years, which is usually 
that of marriage. At length, on a festival day, he brought her forth. 
But the sight of a girl was a sight so strange in the house of a 
Kajapoo, that no father would take the unhappy child as a wife 
for his son. The distracted father, pursued, terrified by the threats 
of his friends, and by the shame which oppressed his house, fell 
into despair, and beside himself, he went mad, and raising his 
hand against his young and innocent daughter, he destroyed 
her. 

But if in other tribes life is allowed to the young females, their 
fate is still no better: they drag out their early years in the most 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 105 

languishing idleness, in the most barbarous ignorance. Disquiet- 
ed by the most abject superstitions, they frequently wander forth 
on the longest pilgrimages. One day, sixteen young girls, with 
as many priests, embarked on the Ganges. Each of the victims 
bore a vase, fastened to her shoulder. Soon, leaning upon the 
hand of one of these cruel pontiffs, they cast themselves one after 
the other into the river, and floated, until the vases filling with 
water, plunged and kept them firm beneath the rolling flood ! 
They believed they had taken the direct road to heaven; the 
priests gloated over the frightful spectacle ; the multitudes on the 
shore shouted forth their plaudits, and not a single eye wept for 
the wretched victims ! Oh Thou, who, in ascending Golgotha, 
wept over the daughters of Jerusalem, Thou at least, beholdest from 
thy seat in heaven these frightful miseries, and anew Thou sound- 
est in our ears the words, " Go ye into all the world and preach 
the Gospel to every creature." 

But let us consider a little further the lives of this half of the 
human race, the most interesting because the most dependant. 
Does a Hindoo die, a funeral pile is erected to consume his body ; 
his widow is dragged thither bound ; her eldest son approaches 
to kindle it with a parricidal hand ! Sometimes these unhappy 
women break their bands, escape from the burning scaffold, and 
cast themselves into the river, to extinguish their funeral garment 
already in flames : but the barbarous priests bring them back, and 
the child replenishes the fire which is to consume her upon 
whose breast he has been borne ! 

Are there some castes who bury their dead, in place of burning 
them ? The fate of these victims is still more frightful ! The widow 
is conducted with great ceremonies to the tomb, and seated in 
the trench, holding the body of her husband in her arms ! The 
relatives and children begin to throw slowly upon her the earth 
which is to cover her ; she remains immoveable ; the earth is 
gradually heaped up around her body ; soon it reaches her waist 
and neck, her lips ; suddenly they cast a great heap upon her 
head — the earth chokes her — her children rush upon her and 
tread her under their feet, and the poor mother soon breathes her 
last !* 

See, my brethren, what is still occurring ; in the single province 
of Bengal two hundred widows annually suffer this dreadful fate. 
Mothers and daughters of Christian Europe ! do you not hear the 
cries of your sisters issuing from the flames, and the stifled sighs 
uttered by these living corpses from the depths of their tombs ? 

If such is the fate of the wives, what is that which they fre- 
quently cause their children to experience ? Alas ! the spirit of 
darkness in these unhappy regions exercises his empire over all 

* The English government has at length enacted a law against these sacri- 
fices, but it can be enforced only in that part of Bengal where there are 
English troops. In the remainder of India, especially in the provinces 
submitting to tributary princes, the propagation of Christianity alone can 
abolish the abominable superstition, 
5* 



106 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

sexes, all ages, all estates. A mother has perhaps consecrated, 
even before its birth, her child to some cruel divinity ; when it 
has attained its third year she leads it to the border of the river, 
and exciting it by her gestures to enter, in order to bathe its deli- 
cate limbs, she leads it by the hand, until reaching a certain 
depth, the river washes and bears it away. Then, seating her- 
self upon the bank, the mother listens to its plaintive cries, and 
contemplates its last struggles with death. Others cast their 
infants to ferocious crocodiles, and look on with astonishment 
as these river monsters dispute their prey until one of them has 
swallowed it up ! Children, poor little children ! you to whom 
the Saviour of the world has said with so much tenderness, Suf- 
fer them to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the king- 
dom of heaven : you whom he took in his arms and blessed, plac- 
ing his sacred hands upon your head, this is not the fate reserved 
for you by the gospel of Jesus Christ ! 

And what is the destiny of the old man ? As the end of his 
days approach, he is dragged to the banks of the Ganges, or 
some other sacred river. They constrain him to drink abundantly 
of its purifying water ; they cover his breast, his forehead, his 
arms, with the slime of the river, they fill with it his mouth, his 
eyes, and his ears, and before his soul has left his body, they cast 
it into the homicidal waters. So dies the old idolator. How 
different from the death of that Simeon, who desired to depart in 
peace, since his eyes had seen the salvation of God ! 

In what manner do these people adore their horrible divinities ? 
Let us come and assist at the annual festival of Muha Deo (the 
great god). Here, some, after plunging iron hooks into their loins — 
cause themselves to be swung in the air, by means of cords 
attached to high see-saws ; there, others run upon points of sharp 
iron, and give themselves mortal wounds with a knife, and all 
end the festival by dancing with naked feet on burning coals ! 
Or, come to the festival of Juggernaut : while a great number of 
worshippers with difficulty drag along the immense car of the 
horrible idol, multitudes cast themselves in the road over which 
the murderous car is to pass, and being crushed by its heavy 
wheels ; sacrifice their lives in the midst of dreadful torments ! 
Word of the Lord ! resound throughout those distant countries, 
and say to those unhappy nations : God is a spirit, and those that 
worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth ! 

But let us approach the vast Archipelago of Lower India, to 
which our missionaries are especially destined ! Alas ! we shall 
but encounter the same spectacle, stained, perhaps, with still more 
barbarism and ferocity. The god adored by a large portion of the 
inhabitants of Java, is the crocodile. The neighboring islanders 
regard it as their father, and the stem of their species. In the 
Moluccas the inhabitants appear to recognize a superior divinity, 
but instead of serving him, they worship the devil. Their 
manners are grossly corrupt; adultery and debauchery are not re- 
garded as sins ; idle, false, treacherous, liars, abandoned to all 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 107 

vices, they are terrible when offended, and revenge themselves 
only by murder. 

In the Island of Borneo, whose immense extent we possess, 
while possessing but a slight knowledge of it, there are found 
tribes in which no man can marry without having committed two 
or three assassinations. These islanders place themselves at the 
sides of the highways, covering themselves with branches, skil- 
fully disposed, and remaining as motionless as if fastened by deep 
roots in the earth ; the victim who thinks he sees only a grateful 
shade, approaches without distrust, and at the instant he passes 
by, these murderous trees spring up, cast themselves upon their 
prey and destroy him ? 

In the mountains of Java are cannibals, who ascribe a principle 
of love, as they say, to horrors which human language can 
scarcely relate. Is one of their friends sick ? They call a 
soothsayer. Does he announce death ? They kill the sick man: 
coolly cut his body in pieces ; then the relatives divide it among 
themselves, and devour this flesh ! 

Oh, horrible scenes presented by the idolatrous world ! oh, 
darkness, which covers the people, upon whom the Star in the 
East has not yet arisen ! How lovely thou art, religion of Jesus, 
and how our affrighted eyes have need of repose in thy mild 
light ! What, evangelical Christians ! Do you think that it is not 
necessary ? that it is not your duty to come, each according to your 
means, to the relief of so much misery ? Is this a state of inno- 
cence ? Are these sweet and gentle manners ? Is not the evil suffi- 
ciently great, or shall it become still worse before our charity can 
move ? Are better days never to rise upon the earth ? Must 
darkness, superstition, cruelty, brutishness, despair, continue to 
cover, from age to age, the greatest part of the globe we in- 
habit ? It is easy, in the midst of all the charities, of all the tran- 
quillities of life, to say : it is not necessary. But, do you not hear the 
voice of these victims which, from those distant regions, resounds 
even to you ? If you send away this voice without listening to it, 
I declare to you, that it will go to accuse you before the throne of 
God ! Yes, all these nations, who are sitting in the horrors of 
superstition, with their horrible attendants, arise and present them- 
selves before you, as that man of Macedonia, who appeared in a 
dream to Paul at Troas ; and, surrounded by all their griefs, they 
beg you, they address to you, as did that Macedonian, the urgent 
prayer : Come over and help us. 

THE MEANS. 

" It is true," perhaps you may now say, my dear hearers ; " the 
wants of these people are pressing, but what remedy can be offer- 
ed to so great misery ? What means in our possession sufficient- 
ly powerful to change the state of nations, and the face of the 
earth ?" 

Yes, the evil is great, but the remedy is greater still. The evil 
has arisen from the power of darkness, who has involved our race 
in his rebellion ; but the remedy emanates from the sovereign 



108 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

God, who created the heavens and the earth. It is not man who 
comes to the help of man ; it is God who advances into this arena, 
wherein such terrible battles are to take place. You are right, 
all the philosophy of man could effect nothing. Socrates and 
Plato, with their admirable reason, and by the power of their elo- 
quence, have not converted a single village from its vain idols 
to the God whom they knew. He who causes herbs, for the heal- 
ing of our bodies, to spring up in the fields, cannot forget the 
malady of our immortal souls. 

The preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ among all 
nations, preceded, accompanied and followed by those things, 
which it usually draws with it, the founding of numerous schools, 
the propagation of evangelical knowledge, light and virtues, the 
introduction of a peaceful, active, social — in a word, of a Chris- 
tian domestic life ; such are the means that God has proposed, 
and for the execution of which He has given to the world a Sa- 
viour ; He has planted, as the Scriptures express it, on either side 
of the river of human generations, a tree of life, whose leaves are for 
the healing of the nations. 

It is many ages since God began to dispose everything for the 
accomplishment of this work. He has gone before us, if we may 
so express ourselves, and nations no longer exist, until he has al- 
ready with a wise hand laid deep the foundations of their salva- 
tion. 

About two thousand years before the great epoch, which in giv- 
ing a Redeemer to man, has made all things new here below, the 
sciences and arts began to spring up among the people, ideas be- 
came more distinct, and they began to classify them under certain 
heads ; each nation was occupied in cultivating the wisdom, the 
industry that Providence seemed to have assigned for its part. 
The sciences appear to have found in Egypt and Babylon the soil 
favorable to their development : the arts in Greece ; commerce in 
Phenicia. The knowledge of God reclaimed his people. It was 
necessary that religion which, infinitely more than anything else, 
contributes to the welfare of man, should have a proper soil in 
which to deposit its seeds, in which it might increase, and in time 
might spread its branches over the face of the earth. What it thus 
required was granted it. God chose and called from among the 
nations a man named Abraham to be the father of the people from 
whom should one day spring the founder of his everlasting king- 
dom. In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Such was 
the motive of the alliance formed with the son of Terah. Isaac, 
Israel, the twelve patriarchs, succeeded Abraham. The Israelites 
became a powerful nation, but neither Abraham nor Israel thought 
of encompassing the whole earth, nor of converting the families of 
the earth. It was not then for immediate action that God called 
Abraham; he must have had in view some future institution, 
which preparing itself in silence, should, at the appointed 
time, pour out upon the nations the greatness of its benefits. Gra- 
dually there was found in the distant future, an image at first in- 
distinct, upon which the eyes of the Patriarchs were fastened with 
respect, to which each passing century added some new feature, 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 109 

which promised to humanity a mysterious benefactor charged 
with fulfilling the promises of eternal love. Jacob on his death- 
bed had a glimpse of it, and saluting it by the name of Shiloh, ex- 
plained that unto him should the gathering of the people be ! 

David, seizing his sacred harp, begins with a song of grief. He 
sees a just one persecuted. He speaks even of the crucifixion. His 
garments are parted among his enemies. They cast lots upon his 
vesture. But he ends in a voice of praise and glory, announcing 
a reign in which all the ends of the world, all the hundreds of 
the nations, shall turn unto the Lord, and shall worship before him 
whose ineffable griefs he beheld. Isaiah, at the very period when 
the ten tribes were already led away into captivity, when the glory 
of Judah was darkened, when her ruin, the destruction of the city 
and of the temple, her exile, her dispersion and her great shame, 
were already prepared, announced to her the most brilliant desti- 
nies : he saw in the future the tender plant clothed in a dignity 
altogether new; the Lord gave him for a light to the gentiles, 
to be his salvation unto the end of the earth ! Arise, he exclaimed 
to the people of God., for the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 

Daniel, in the bosom of the court of Babylon, saw, in the future, 
the fall of all the power and splendor which surrounded him, and 
discovered four kingdoms which should succeed it, and then give 
place to another kingdom, created by the King of Heaven, and estab- 
lished by the Son of Man, whose kingdom is an everlasting king- 
dom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. This sound of 
deliverance, of salvation for all nations, pervades all our revela- 
tions like the distant rolling of thunder, whose sound increases in 
proportion as it approaches ; and when the appointed time 
arrived — when the earth gave birth to her Saviour — when the 
desire of the nations appeared, the aged Simeon exclaimed, " Mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of 
all people." The son of Zacharias made the desert resound with 
the words — all flesh shall see the salvation of God. The son of 
Abraham, and of David himself, whose glance pierced futurity, 
made to the earth, divided between a thousand superstitions, this 
touching promise : There shall be onefold and one shepherd. And 
finally, at the moment of his ascension, he left to his disciples the 
testament contained in our text, upon which the words we have 
quoted are but the commentary : Go unto all the world and preach 
the gospel to every creature. 

Do you believe, my dear hearers, that a method, prepared so 
many ages beforehand — prepared by God himself, shall not be 
sufficiently powerful to attain the end for which it was designed ? 
A work decreed in the counsels of the Father, for which he has 
formed a people to himself, has raised up prophets, has filled 
Israel from age to age with so many mighty promises, shall this 
be a work for which there is no method of accomplishment ? 
The blessing announced four thousand years ago to the sons of 
Terah, on the plains of Haran, shall it not now spread over all the 
earth ? That which man designs, so far as he has strength, he 
executes ; shall it not be the same with God ? When he has gone 



110 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

forward, shall he turn back ; after having spoken, shall he keep 
silence ? No ; the truth did not lie unto the Patriarchs ; the 
faithful does not now repent of that which he then promised ; 
God is not a man, that he should lie ; neither the Son of Man, that he 
should repent ; hath he said, and shall he not do it ? 

But, do you still ask, is this way decreed of God so many ages 
in advance ? is it really appropriate for the end it was designed to 
accomplish, and capable of causing the abominations of the peo- 
ple to disappear? Since it is God who established it, God 
who knows the heart of man, can we doubt it ? But let us in- 
vestigate and admire how admirable and proper the means are to 
destroy even the principle of idolatry, and thus to pull up the tree 
by its roots. From whence has idolatry arisen ? Man bears 
within him a conscience : this holy voice cries out that he is 
guilty. Dreading an angry Judge, he seeks everywhere for some 
support, for some intercessor. The angels, the stars, imaginary 
beings, men, shall I say, beasts, trees, stones ? become to him so 
many secondary divinities, so many mediators, to whom he ad- 
dresses himself to be reconciled with the supreme God, and be- 
fore whom, alas ! the same terrors soon come to assail him. 
Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. What 
shall be done to ruin from their foundations all these systems of 
polytheism, immensely different, but all having the same origin ? 

Fear has given birth to idols ; love would re-establish the 
throne of God in the heart. It is necessary that this consoling 
voice should penetrate the depths of the heart of man : " God has 
pardoned thee ! God has loved thee !" This voice has been heard ! 
It sounded eighteen hundred years ago on Calvary ; for eight- 
een hundred years it has resounded in the world ; and it is now 
borne to all the inhabitants of the universe. At the moment 
when the Son of God, bearing our griefs, expiated our sins, satis- 
fied eternal justice, reconciled the world unto his Father, uttered. 
a loud cry upon Golgotha, fulfilled all things, and bowed his di- 
vine head, this astonishing mystery was made known to man — 
God is love ! Nations of the earth ! tremble no longer before 
your bloody idols ? God is love ! Cease your sacrifices ! reject all 
your vain practices ! Despise all your powerless mediators ! That 
which God has already done, you need no longer do. Jesus, the 
only mediator, has died, the just for the unjust. God has reconciled 
the world unto Himself God is love ! At this new voice, which 
resounds throughout the world, the heart of the people is aston- 
ished. My brethren, their fears are dissipated ; they abandon 
their Gods of blood, and cast themselves with tears into the arms 
of God their Saviour ! " Nothing in the whole Gospel surprised 
me so much," said a converted African, " as the news that God is 
love. An inexpressible joy then filled my heart, and I broke my 
idols." " I have tried," said a Hindoo to a worthy missionary, 
who had asked him why he wished to become a Christian, " I 
have tried, in all the ways my countrymen know, to calm the 
troubles of my heart ; I have bathed in the Ganges ; I have visited 
holy places ; I have made presents to the Brahmins ; I have re- 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. Ill 

peated all the names of our gods; — but all this' has not given 
peace to my soul. Latterly I have learned that Jesus Christ be- 
came a man ; that he died for us, his enemies, to take away our 
sins. This must be the true way of salvation, and therefore I 
would become his disciple." 

Yes, Lord, it is thy death which must convert the people. To 
the Jew a stumbling-block, to the Greek foolishness, it is the wisdom of 
God and the power of God ; and for eighteen hundred years it has 
not failed to accomplish this word of thine : And I, if I be lifted 
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. But what were your- 
selves, my dear hearers, before the good news of Christ was borne 
to you ? Decipher on the ancient monuments the names of the 
idols whom your fathers adored, seek in the deep forests for the 
bloody altars upon which your Druids immolated their victims, 
and you will form some idea of the power of this good news of 
the love of God in Christ, to destroy the superstition of the Gen- 
tiles. 

Nations of Europe, to what do you owe the light you enjoy, 
the knowledge of the true God, the civilisation, the institutions 
of society, the blessings of domestic life, and the many founda- 
tions which come to the relief of human misery ? To what, if 
not to the Gospel of Christ ? And why will you not do now for 
other nations that which was formerly done for yourselves ? 

But does not that which we now see in our midst sufficiently 
attest the power of the cross of Christ to convert idolatrous hearts ? 
I have seen the worldling converted ; I have seen the unbeliever 
convinced ; I have seen him who had sacrificed to criminal pas- 
sions become holy unto the Lord ; and it was the cross of Christ 
which effected these miracles ! Do you* think, then, my dear 
hearers, that the heart of man may be more capable of resist- 
ing it under one zone, than under another? Do you believe 
that those idols of gold and silver, before which these people 
prostrate themselves, have chains more difficult to break by the 
strength of God than the thousand idols of our lusts ? No ! the 
laver in which our members have been healed is accessible to all 
nations, and its water is powerful for all nations ! 

Think, then, my brethren, of your responsibility, and of the 
fault of which you are guilty, if you do not give to the world the 
powerful remedy which is found in your hands. If a town was 
ravaged by a contagious fever, how guilty would that man be 
who, possessing an infallible remedy, should refuse to make it 
known ? Oh ! the mental plague of the soul, which desolates ido- 
latrous nations, is a thousand times more terrible than all the 
plagues of the body. We have in our hands the means which 
can destroy it, the Gospel of Christ — and will you refuse to bear it 
to them ? 

God has planted upon the earth a tree, which springing, said 
the Saviour, from the least of all seeds, is to shelter under its grateful 
shadow everything under the heavens. Christians of Europe! 
why do you arbitrarily cut off its branches ? why do you permit 
them to cover only your own dwellings, and why do you hinder 



112 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

them from spreading over the most remote nations ? God has de- 
creed a temple to be raised in the earth, and from the beginning 
has traced its design in such a manner, that it shall hold within 
its enclosure all the tribes of earth — who has given you a right to 
contract its borders, and to narrow the curtains of its habitations ? 
The Son of God has given up his life for the fulfilment of this 
counsel, and you, by your indifference, oppose it as much as in 
you lies ; you render useless the blood of the Son of God, and you 
lose those for whom Christ had died. What, are not the nations of 
Asia, of Africa, of America — are they not those families of the 
earth, who were to be blessed in the posterity of Abraham ? Chris- 
tian souls ! you are now the depositories of the healing of the na- 
tions, and if you bury it in the earth, instead of trafficking with it, 
you will hear, in the day of God, these words, Cast the unfaithful 
servant into outer darkness. These unhappy nations think not 
as you do. With loud cries they demand of you this remedy. 
" For a long time," said a Hindoo to the European Christians, 
" for a long time you have had this glorious book, this book of 
the nations; for many ages you have known its truth, it has made 
you free ; it has given you peace ; and for us ? — you have left us 
to languish in the darkness, in the slavery of superstition, of sin 
and of death." " Woe is me," exclaimed the first missionary 
among the heathen, Paul of Tarsus, and we ought also to repeat 
it after him, " Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel." 

THE SUCCESS. 

Yes, my brethren, the work of publishing the Gospel through- 
out the world, is the great work designed of God. " But," per- 
haps some one may sa/, (f why may not even the greatness of the 
misery of the heathen discourage us ? What hope can we enter- 
tain of changing all this ? What a multitude of obstacles ? It is 
an impracticable thing." 

We will begin, my brethren, by a partial recognition of the 
truth of what you say. Yes, there are and there will ever be a mul- 
titude of obstacles. We shall find some nations who will appear 
resolutely attached to their superstitions ; we shall encounter some 
who, bearing the name of Christians, will, through different mo- 
tives, oppose this admirable work ; we shall sometimes, perhaps, 
be deceived in our missionaries, who will not always be equal 
to the work ; and other obstacles still will accumulate. But, 
though those obstacles should rise as high as the heavens are 
above the earth, we ought not for an instant to hesitate ; for, not- 
withstanding all these obstacles, our business is still with the 
work of God, with the work of man's salvation. What good en- 
terprise is there on earth in which obstacles are not found ? What 
one is there, which would ever be accomplished, did we allow 
ourselves to be thus discouraged ? 

What should we have become, the nations of Europe, if the 
missionary Paul of Tarsus had lost all hope when he saw himself 
in the first European city to which he carried the Gospel, seized, 
dragged before the magistrates, cast into prison, and his feet put 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS, 113 

into the stocks ? And when, in the second city to which he came, 
he raised against himself such a terrible tumult that his friends 
were obliged to set him without the walls by night, what would 
have become of us, if, frightened by these obstacles, he had end- 
ed his mission, had quitted Europe, and returned to Asia ? Igno- 
rant and barbarous, we should have still continued to sacrifice 
in our forests human victims to bloody divinities ! But he feared 
no obstacle ; he advanced intrepidly on his way ; preached at 
Athens the unknown God, leaving to all ages an example of cour- 
age, which ought for ever to animate the disciples of Christ. 

Let not obstacles, then, discourage us, but let them rather 
redouble our zeal ! When the pilot finds himself on a stormy sea, 
he does not allow the bellowing waves which beat on all sides 
of his vessel, to check his course ; but he looks at the compass, 
and holding with a firm hand to the helm, he ploughs the furious 
waves and stretches for port. My brethren, the compass to which 
you should look is the Word of God ; there are the promises of 
God, God himself, who is true, and who will not fail you — look 
to'Him and go forward. He knows that he gave a difficult order, 
and that the courage of his disciples would often waver. He 
who said to them in my text, " Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the Gospel to every creature ;" likewise said to them immediately be- 
fore, " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth ;" and 
immediately after," Lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world." These two sayings are as two columns which 
support, on the right and on the left, the work to which we call 
you. Fear not ! let not] your courage Taker for a moment ! 
Friends of the publication of the Gospel of peace upon the earth ! 
preachers of righteousness to the distant races of Shem and Ham ! 
it is not your strength, but the power of Christ which is to accom- 
plish all this. You fight under the standard of a master to whom 
all power has been given in heaven and in earth ! He holds in 
his hands the hearts of all kings and people, and from the stones 
themselves, he can if he will raise up children unto Abraham ! 
Fear not ! " He is always with you, even unto the end of the world." 
It is his work and not yours that you are to accomplish, and he 
is himself there to perform his work. O, thou afflicted, tossed itith 
tempest, fear nothing ! says the Lord. Behold they shall surely gather 
together but not by me ; whosoever shall gather together against thee shall 
fall for thy sake. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. 

So, my brethren, even when we cannot see the least success, 
we ought to walk by faith. But is it thus ? No, the voice of re- 
joicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous : the right 
hand of the Lord doeth valiantly / Who are these that fly as a cloud, 
and a$ the doves to their windows ? Thy Church, oh Lord, shall suck 
the milk of the Gentiles, and shall suck the breast of kings! 

Never, since the first propagation of Christianity upon earth, 
has the preaching of the Gospel been crowned with such success : 
this work is accomplished from the ice of one pole to the ice of 
the other, and the sun in his whole course does not cease to shine 
upon it. In the utmost limits of the north, Greenland has seen 



114 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

barbarism and the vices of savage life fly, and the icy desert bios- 
so77i like the rose. A little lower, in Labrador, four Christian sta- 
tions are gradually gathering around them these wandering sav- 
ages, and transforming them into children of God and civilized 
tribes. " One has only to see an Esquimaux," said a venerable 
Missionary to us who had labored thirty years in these ungenial cli- 
mates, " to discover in the peace and love which shine in all his 
features, or in his stern and ferocious glance, whether he is or is 
not a Christian." Let us descend to the islands and towards the 
continent of the West Indies, everywhere the unhappy negro 
slaves are called to the glorious liberty of the Gospel ? We have 
seen in the house of our colonists at Paramaribo, the negress con- 
verted by the Moravian missionaries, display all the Christian vir- 
tues, and act as a mother to the children of her masters. Do the 
miracles of Otaheite and the neighboring isles salute us ? Otaheite 
become a Christian. church, a Christian state; Otaheite, where 
horrible debaucheries and human sacrifices have ceased ; Otaheite 
filled with the Word of God, an object of astonishment to naviga- 
tors ;* a habitation of light, from which are constantly sent forth 
a number of native preachers, to bear to other isles the benefits of 
the Gospel ; Otaheite, whose king, now deceased, gave to a Euro- 
pean seaman, in place of any other present, a New Testament in 
the Otaheitan tongue. Shall we visit the Sandwich Islands, a few 
years ago covered with darkness ? We shall hear there, on Satur- 
day evening, a public crier passing through the villages, saying : 
" Inhabitants ! cease from your labors ; the Lord's day approaches." 
Schools are multiplied ; polygamy is abolished ; children are no 
longer destroyed." " This," said a father, carrying a bamboo filled 
with oil, designed for the use of the Missions, " this is for my child ! 
if the Missionaries had not come, my child had lost its life like 
many others ?" And the powerful queen, Keopulani, raising her- 
self on her dying couch, found strength to say to the chiefs who 
surrounded her : " The Word of God is a true Word ! I have no 
desire to return to the gods of Hawai : they are all false gods ; but 
1 love Jesus Christ, and I have given myself to Him !" 

Do we reach even New Zealand ? Undoubtedly the Gospel has 
not yet obtained there such glorious victories ; but it has already 
commenced to soften the cannibal inhabitants. The chief Banghi 
has forsaken his god Atna, invisible eater of men ; for he has 
found Christ, and at the point of death, he exclaimed : " There is 
great light within me." 

Traversing the vast ocean, passing beyond South America, 
upon which still rests darkness, let us greet the southern part of 
the African continent. A continually increasing number of truly 
Christian and civilized communities are formed and are still forming 
among the Hottentots, the savage Bushmen, the Canres, the Na- 
maquas and other tribes. The stupid Hottentot, emancipated by 

* See among others the despatch addressed to his excellency, the Minis- 
ter of the Marine of France, by M. Duperrey, Lieutenant, commanding H. 
M. corvette the Coquille, in the Moniteur of the 1st of April, 1824. 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 115 

the Gospel, builds asylums in which are received his poor, his in- 
firm, his aged ; all the arts of civilisation are spreading in these 
countries, over which the philosophy of ages had pronounced its 
powerless curse. Upon the western shores of Africa, some colo- 
nies of free negroes present miracles of humility, of faith, of Chris- 
tian charity, along with order and industry, and the Children of the 
burning sands include all Christianity in their touching summary : 
" Bad heart, very bad ; but Saviour good, very good." 

Some Swiss missionaries are found on the frontiers of inaccessi- 
ble Abyssinia, and one of them, whom we have the happiness to 
know, saw before he had crossed its limits, one of the most influ- 
ential Abyssinians converted to true Christianity. Cairo, ancient 
Alexandria, echo to the steps of the preacher of the Gospel. The 
Greek, who is awakening, will awake, we trust, a Christian ; 
Thessalonica already renews the spectacle she presented to the 
eyes of the missionary Paul. Children, young men, old men, a 
great number of Greek priests, all ask with eagerness for the Holy 
Scriptures in modern Greek ; and a poor gardener, who lived only 
by the produce of his little garden, deposited at the feet of the 
Missionary a basket of fruit, all his wealth, asking in exchange the 
Gospel of Christ. 

The ancient and fallen churches of the East begin to stir and 
to awaken. The sons of the New World hasten from the banks 
of the Ohio to preach Christ crucified to the inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem. The New Testament is liberally scattered among the dis- 
persed Churches of Syria and Armenia, even in the midst of the 
ruins of Aleppo ; a confused sound, as of a corpse that gathers 
together its bones, is heard throughout these countries. Some 
American families, protected by the Muscovite standard, have 
gathered in crowds upon the soil of their ancient country, from 
which have fled the subjects of the Crescent. Islamism, whose 
downfall is announced by more than one event, and one prophecy, 
begins to receive the gospel of the Nazarene. The Kurds, the 
Calmucks, the Burgates ask for Missionaries, and receive them. 
At Ceylon more than ten thousand children are found in schools. 
The ancient priests of Buddha announce the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ; they are seen in numerous groups, advancing towards the 
baptismal font, clothed in their sacerdotal habits ; then casting 
them aside and confessing Jesus. The high priest, Nadasis, who 
had built sixty pagan temples, and who maintained three hundred 
and fifty priests, is converted to the Gospel — employs all his in- 
fluence to spread it, and replies to those who ask him what he 
thinks of the religion of Jesus Christ: " The religion of Buddha 
is the light ; but the religion of Jesus Christ is the sun." The 
Burman Empire, object of the most admirable devotion, begins to 
receive the rays of the sun of righteousness. The missionaries 
have penetrated into the Golden City, and before the golden face 
of the King. They are cast into dungeons ; they see themselves 
robbed of dear companions,* but they remain firm in the faith ; 

* We refer particularly to the death of Mrs. Judson, whose memoirs 
have been published in America. 



116 CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

soon they elevate with more boldness than ever, the standard of 
Christ, and "hail," say they, "the period not far distant, when, 
like the Otaheitan, the Birman shall, break the chains of supersti- 
tion and idolatry, and shall join those nations who adore the one 
true and living God." But let us direct our step towards India, 
whose horrors we have described ; they are not yet converted 
like Otaheite, Eimeo, the Sandwich Islands, the south of Africa ; 
but already on all sides these countries begin to open to the 
Gospel ; say the missionary societies of the Low Countries, " we 
now hear of young girls at Chinsurah, in Bengal, seated under 
trees, sheltered from the burning rays of the sun, reading aloud 
from the Bible, and relating to each other some of the extracts of 
our sacred books. Wives, in place of being only miserable slaves, 
sometimes contribute to the intellectual culture of their husbands, 
often teaching them to read, after having learned to do so them- 
selves, and both coming to offer themselves to the missionaries as 
instructors of the rising generation. The poor children, instead 
of being thrown to the crocodiles, are received into an infinite 
number of schools. A little girl of nine years, born in Europe, 
restricted her food, in order to contribute towards procuring the 
benefits of instruction for children of her own age ! " We can- 
not describe," continue the respected men of whom I have spoken, 
" the progress that Christianity is making in these countries ! Oh ! 
if the women of the Low Countries could, through love to the 
Saviour, take to heart the salvation of their sisters in Bengal ! 
We who arepiere, cannot cease to supplicate^our friends in Christ to 
come to our aid by missionaries, by prayers and by contributions." 
And what touching scenes are laid open to us in India ! Here 
we see a Brahmin who has made a vow of perpetual silence : 
when he passes through the streets, the richest Hindoos cast them- 
selves at his feet in adoration. This mysterious personage wears 
a necklace of serpents' bones ; he seems no longer to have any- 
thing in common with humanity, and believes himself a god. But 
a Christian work, in the Bengalese tongue, causes light to shine 
through the barriers whose perpetual silence surrounds him : his 
eyes are opened : he casts himself at the feet of Jesus Christ ; he 
renounces his caste, receives baptism, and becomes an humble 
disciple of the Saviour. Here I see a man, for a long period the 
leader of a band of singers, who repeated heinous hymns in idol 
temples ; now I hear him in a Christian temple, a minister of 
Christ, conducting with tears the song of thanksgiving of the dis- 
ciples who are about to partake with him of the supper of the 
Lord. There I discover an aged Hindoo, who for a long period 
of his life submitted blindly to his priests, and who at six several 
times has yielded to the torture of swinging in the air. Now he 
has become a Christian and his death approaches. The horrible 
thought of having to pass through the bodies of sixty millions of 
animals before again becoming a man, does not trouble his soul 
at this solemn moment. Old things are passed away. A missionary 
visits his death-bed; he asks him if, in the midst of his sufferings, 
he still feels the presence of his Saviour ; and the old man placing 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 117 

his hand upon his breast says : " He is here, he is here, I feel that he 
is here /" 

Let us likewise come, my brethren, to Java and the neighboring 
islands, submitting to our august and beloved sovereign, and on 
which our missionaries are laboring at eleven stations. In the 
voyages made by our missionaries, multitudes press around them, 
desiring the words of the good news of Christ, like a thirsty soil 
awaiting the rain from heaven. Heathen princes themselves 
contribute to the maintenance of Missions ; others call upon 
the missionaries to establish a Christian school in their island. 
Temples consecrated to the worship of the evil spirit are destroyed ; 
the eagerness of these islanders for the Word of God is such, that 
the missionaries, not having a sufficient number of the sacred 
books, are obliged to distribute leaf by leaf, fragments of their 
own Bibles ; the grace of God works in their hearts, everywhere 
they are asking for instruction, and the melioration of manners, 
and industry among these people, furnish striking proof of the 
progress they have made in the truth. We will show you a Chi- 
nese widow, long a disciple of Confucius, who having taken 
refuge in one of our islands, fell asleep shortly after in the Lord : 
" No, I fear nothing more," said she, on her death-bed, to the wife 
of one of our oldest missionaries in the East Indies, " I am not 
afraid of death itself, for I know in whom I have believed, and my Sa- 
viour is powerful to forgive all my sins !" The very night of her 
departure she said : "Now I feel that God is reconciled with me, 
and his peace is diffused throughout my soul." Shortly after, call- 
ing to the persons who watched near her bedside, she said: 
" Now you may go to sleep, for I shall soon go to rest." Then 
she slept sweetly in Jesus. 

How can we better complete our survey than by greeting China 
herself, who believes herself to be as unchangeable as God, but 
whom the Word of the Lord has already begun to shake ? Our 
missionaries of the Eastern Archipelago, in the advanced posts of 
Christianity, are in the presence of this dreaded enemy : the Word 
of God translated into Chinese, is liberally scattered wherever it 
can find access. One of our missionaries, w T hose hand we have 
more than once clasped with fraternal pressure, 1 * is unwearied in 
distributing it upon the Chinese vessels and upon all those that 
can penetrate our courts. Already Keutenching, a Chinese convert- 
ed by his countryman Leangafa, has made the shores of the Celes- 
tial Empire resound with this touching confession: " My brother 
said to me ; man, though his sins are as weighty as great mountains, 
if he sincerely repent and trust in Jesus, the Saviour of the world, 
shall obtain complete deliverance from his sins and the blessing 
of eternal life ! — I opened my heart; I believed ; I received bap- 
tism, asking the Holy Spirit to implant within my heart the root of 
holiness !" 

Thus the pretended everlasting bulwarks begin to tremble. 
Thus all flesh begins to see the salvation of God. Thus from one end 
of the world to the other, the knowledge of the Lord and His 

* M. Gutzlaff. 



IIS CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

Anointed begins to fill the earth. God ! of a truth thou hast set 
vp tin iic ensign for the nations ! 

Now, my brethren, we come to solicit you, in the name of God 
the Saviour, henceforth to take a lively and sincere interest hi the 
great and admirable work of Evangelical missions among the 
heathen. Nations of Europe ! We have long enough, through our 
avarice and licentiousness, borne misery, debauchery, discord, and 
slavery to distant nations. Boast of your civilisation, people of Eu- 
rope ! and these nations will reply, by presenting to you your errors, 
your depravity and your crimes ! Such are the influences, which 
for ages have issued from a corrupt Christianity. We are indebt- 
ed to these people, my brethren ; we have many faults to expi- 
ate. Our fathers have left us a debt which we must discharge : 
new counting-houses must be erected upon all the shores of India, 
peopled with new merchants, circulating new treasures. 

Europe, my brethren, is like a volcano which often keeps 
silence without, because it is stirring up within its destructive 
fires ; but at certain periods it casts forth its flames and its burn- 
ing lava. Europe cannot contain all the life that is enclosed within 
her. Three periods in modern times have already succeeded 
each other, in which she has cast her power without. Once stir- 
red by a warlike spirit influenced by religious fanaticism, she 
placed herself in arms under the standard of the Cross, to seek by 
fire and sword, the conquest of the land once sanctified by the 
steps of the Prince of Peace. Later, a spirit of discovery spread 
along all the European shores ; vessels followed vessels, Europe 
crossed the seas and discovered with astonishment a new World, 
peopled by inhabitants of whose being she had until now been 
ignorant. At a still later period, when her discoveries were se- 
cured, a mercantile spirit seized the same nations ; they cruised 
for gold and silver, and everywhere established their counting- 
houses. 

Now, my brethren, a new period commences. Europe, in peace, 
has a new necessity for carrying her strength without. Let the 
spirit of discovery continue, let mercantile relations be multiplied. 
It is well ; but meanwhile there are new enterprises to be formed 
with which it is our business to be informed. All the evangelical 
nations of Europe feel religious activity kindling within their bo- 
soms. This period must be marked by a new character and by a 
more noble zeal than all those which have preceded it. Let us 
bear to the nations who are our brethren, sprung from the same 
blood with us, and redeemed also by the same blood, let us carry 
to them the knowledge of God, civilisation, the Christian virtues, 
private and public peace, peace on earth, eternal peace ! 

Christians ! think of those who have borne Christianity to you ! 
Think that if Amand, Elige, Wilfried, Ewald,* and many others, 
had been so indifferent, neither you nor your fathers would ever 

* Amandus spread the Gospel in Flanders about the year 635. EliziuB^ 
in Friseland and Flanders, about the year 640. Wilfried preached also in 
Frise about the year 680. Willebrod and Ewald came from England, 
preaching in Friseland, at Utrecht, about the year 690. 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREI-GN MISSIONS. 119 

have become Christians. You owe a tribute of gratitude to those 
ministers of the Gospel, who first bore into these countries the 
news of salvation : pay it to their successors ! And if these gene- 
rous men were so devoted in diffusing the light, which the errors 
of men had already begun to obscure, what zeal ought not you to 
manifest, now that God has placed it in your hands in its primi- 
tive splendor ? 

Evangelical Christians ! Has not the Lord transmitted the Gos- 
pel to you in all its purity ? It is not without design that God has 
given the empire of the seas to evangelical nations. Remember 
those Missionaries of the truth whom the Lord raised up, three 
centuries ago, in the midst of slumbering Europe, and send to 
others the blessings they have borne you.* 

Ye are the light of the world. Neither do men light a candle and put 
it under a bushel, but on a candlestick ; and it giveth light unto all that 
are in the house, that is, in the world. 

Christians of the Low Countries ! show yourselves worthy of your 
ancestors ! To them it was given to form the first evangelical- 
Missions ! It is nearly three centuries since, when they had but 
just broken a double yoke and formed themselves into a nation, 
under the glorious standard of Orange, that they proposed to pro- 
pagate in the Indies at the same time with their commerce, the 
glory of Jesus Christ. There were some pastors who, renouncing 
all temporal advantages, went to preach the Gospel in Java, Ceylon 
and other countries. A Mission Institute was founded in thatcity 
of the northern provinces, celebrated by her magnanimous de- 
fence, f What ! my brethren, have the times so changed ? The 
standard of Orange is always the same ; as it has not ceased to be 
that of true glory, so it has not ceased to be that of the Gospel, and: 
to cover with its powerful and protecting shade the generous 
efforts of all who labor to spread among the nations the blessings 
of Jesus Christ ! Christians of the Low Countries ! hear the voice 
of your countrymen in the Indies who yet worship idols ! 

All evangelical nations now rival each other in zeal. Opulent 
England consecrates to the Lord the tenth of her increase, the 
speed of her navy, and the influence of her power. 

Reformed France, issuing from her mourning, her long poverty, 
from her protracted trials, bears onward with joy the first fruits of 
the new life which animated her.f Switzerland listens from the 
bosom of her mountains, and though distant from the shores of 
the sea, hears the plaintive cries its waves waft to us. Old Ger- 
many, always faithful, when the words light, truth, humanity, are 
sounded, gives her sons and daughters in abundance, and makes 

* This sermon was preached the 30th October, that, is on the evening 
of the anniversary of the Reformation. 

t Leyden. See the history of the efforts of the United Provinces for the 
propagation of the Gospel, since the year 1602, in the islands of Ceylon, 
Java, Formosa, Amboyna, etc., in the Journal of Evangelical Missions of 
Paris, first year, page 289. 

X The first three Reformed French missionaries departed from Paris In 
the summer of 1829 for the south of Africa. 



120 CHRISTlANITy AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

them slaves unto slaves, in order to convert them to Christ. 
America, youngest in the ranks of nations, springs up with the 
ardor of youth, and carries the breath of a new respiration to the 
languishing countries of Asia, the primitive source of life, and the 
mother of nations. The love of Christ now embraces the nations ; 
all evangelical communions stretch out their hands from the four 
quarters of the world, and march to the same battle under the 
same standard. Christians of the Low Countries ! let this uni- 
versal movement arouse us ! We were formerly the first, be so 
still at the present hour. Let us rally around those noble men, 
who have founded in our country the best institutions that grace 
it, and let that comprehensive charity, which is the token of the 
strength and greatness of our nation, enlarge all hearts. 

" But," you will perhaps say, " we cannot go, we have our 
business, our relations." True, my brethren, but we do not ask 
you to go ; here are those that would go. Eleven young mission- 
aries* await upon your shores for your offerings, that they may go, 
in the name of God, taking nothing of the Gentiles, and carry the glad 
tidings to those who know it not. Give, then, my brethren, give 
abundantly ! Let each give according to his means. Give ! all 
that you possess is from the Lord. He is it who has given it to 
you ; He asks of you only a small portion of that which is His. 
Give ! Think of the incomprehensible and eternal treasures 
of the grace of Christ, which have become your portion, and give 
him in exchange your silver and your gold. 

Do not listen to that secret voice of your heart which counsels 
you to diminish your contribution, and do not bring to the Lord's 
altar worthless copper instead of silver and gold. Give me to drink, 
said Jesus to the woman of Samaria, at the side of the well. 
Give me to drink ! he still says to each one of you by the mouth 
of those who languish and die for the want of that water which 
whosoever drinketh of it shall never thirst ! Give ! but above all bring 
to this work the contributions of your prayers : nothing can ever 
be effected in the Pagan world without the prayers of the faithful. 
Pray, then, that God will send the great, the only missionary, 
His Holy Spirit, who alone can change the parched ground into a 
pool, and the thirsty land into springs of water. 

But I must pause, in conclusion, and ask if I am not myself a 
missionary, and if there are not in this assembly some souls to 
whom I ought to announce the good tidings from heaven as if 
they had never heard them. Listen, my brethren, to a prophecy 
of the Lord, and tremble : Many shall come from the east and west, 
and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom 
of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out. I am 
seized with fear while contemplating these words ; seeing how 
they have been fulfilled to Israel, I tremble lest they may be again 
accomplished in us ! Oh ! you who have grown up in the midst 
of the privileges of the house of God, have you understood, have 
you believed the good news, published through the world, as 

* They have since gone forth, but others are preparing to follow them. 



CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 121 

they are understood and believed by those blessed souls in our 
days, who have been called from the east and the west ? Alas ! 
I fear that the constant repetition has only hardened your hearts ! 
I come to you now as if I were a missionary, arriving for the first 
time in a country where the sound of the Gospel had never been 
heard. Listen, sinful and guilty souls, to the great and heaven- 
descended news I bear. God saves the world : he makes peace 
with his people : he opens the gates of his grace and his glory. 
Christ gave himself a ransom for all, which has been testified in 
due time. Listen to this testimony as if it were the first time you 
had heard it, and seek to understand and believe it. Yes ! eight- 
een centuries ago, oh soul that belie vest that Jesus is the Son of 
God, the Saviour, thy ransom was paid. Already has thy debt to 
God been discharged, and discharged at an immense price, at the 
price of the life of the Son of God. " At that moment when Christ 
said upon the cross :• It is finished! the salvation of all the children 
of God, who have been, who are and who will be upon earth, 
from every people, every tongue, every tribe, was finished, was 
perfected, as he said those words. Christ is now the ransom for all : 
he is the ransom of Europe ; he is the ransom of Asia ; he is the 
ransom of the distant isles ; he is the ransom of the world ; he is 
thy ransom, oh soul that believest in the Son of God ! He who 
is the salvation of the universe is mighty for thy salvation. He 
whom the Hindoo, the savage of Labrador, the negro of Africa, 
the islander of Tahiti, joyfully proclaim as their Saviour, is thy Sa- 
viour, by the same title as theirs : For as in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive. There is therefore now no condemnation 
to them which are in Christ Jesus. 

Oh ! what glorious tidings ! Shall we say it to others without 
repeating it to ourselves ? Shall we scatter far from us the pre- 
cious gold of faith, and shall we ourselves remain empty and 
poor ? Shall we open to others the gates of glory, and shut them 
against ourselves, " without entering in ?" Let us believe unto sal- 
vation; let us believe it for ourselves ; " Let us bring forth fruit for 
repentance." " Let us become the children of God !" let us become 
" new creatures ;" and may the celestial spirit, which makes " the 
solitary place to blossom and flourish like the rose," vivify our own 
hearts and cause us to " bring forth fruit unto God." 

Lord ! Has this preaching of the Gospel which I would carry to 
the heathen, been received and believed in my own soul ? Re- 
pentance and remission of sins, which I would proclaim to distant 
races, have they been preached in my own house ? And has thy 
kingdom, which now extends to the ends of the earth, been es- 
tablished in my heart ? Lord, may thy kingdom come ; may it reign 
within, may it reign without ! Amen ! Amen ! 
6 



IHRISTIMITY AND PROTESTANTISM, 



ABE THEY 



TWO DISTINCT THINGS? 



TRANSLATED BY M. M. BACKUS. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM- 



FROM THE " ARCHIVES DU CHRISTIANISME," August, 1827. 



It is time.— Psalm cxix. 126, 

There has arisen, in process of time, a new adversary against the 
Church of Jesus Christ. There sprang up in the last century, a 
kind of Protestantism, with which neither the Luthers nor the Cal- 
vins, neither the Drelincourts nor the Dumoulins, neither the Mor- 
nays nor the Claudes, have ever been acquainted : a bastard, gene- 
rated by that union, which erratic spirits have pretended to effect 
between the Gospel and the philosophy of the eighteenth century. 
By an able stratagem, they seek to substitute this feeble and coun- 
terfeit child of an unbelieving age, for the healthy and powerful doc- 
trine which issued forth for the salvation of the world, from the 
times of the Apostles and Reformers. If we do not approve of the 
substitution, if we do not recognize this intruder for the religion 
bequeathed us by our fathers, its patrons cry out intolerance, mys- 
ticism, enthusiasm ; or what more ? — perhaps innovation ! 

Neither the Reformers, nor any of those who have walked in 
their illustrious steps, have ever known any other Protestantism 
than Christianity ; but the fathers and protectors of the system that 
we notice, think not so ; we speak it with sentiments of deep grief, 
but we can no longer keep silence on a subject which everywhere 
presents itself to our minds. Instead of allowing Protestantism to 
be Christianity, all Christianity, and nothing but Christianity, they 
have made of it a separate being, which is neither this nor that, 
neither religion nor philosophy, neither faith nor incredulity. 
This pretended Protestantism issues forth from the camp of Jesus 
Christ, and raises an independent standard ; an unfaithful deserter, 
it still pretends to mingle the colors of the Prince of Life with 
those of this world's wisdom ; but it is only under the latter that 
it rallies, the other being found there only for convenience and by 
mistake. In its hands Protestantism becomes a separate idol, to 
which they offer the homage due only to the Lord, drawing thus 
upon the work of its hands and itself the adoration which belongs 
only to God. We do not fear to say, that this kind of view is a 
revival of the errors of Rome ; it is Papacy under other colors. 
With what do we reproach Roman Catholicism? With having 



126 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

left Christianity and formed a new being. The same thing is 
repeated. To the idol of Rome another idol is opposed ; idol for 
idol, the one may be worth a little more than the other; but cer- 
tainly, we do not think we have gained much by the change. 
«* And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us 
an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are 
in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true 
God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols."* 

Besides, there is nothing astonishing in all this ; we ought to 
expect it. If Phariseeism has taken a body under the triple crown, 
Sadduceeism, the second vice of human nature, ought also to seek 
to assume some form ; but we shall do our duty, we shall not 
leave it to rest quietly in our midst ; we shall raise our voice so 
that it may be constrained to fly and hide far from our churches 
its shameful infidelity. 

Our business now is not with those who are in error, but with 
the errors themselves. As to the defenders of those errors, we 
recognize among them not only many of distinguished and undis- 
puted talents, but we also believe their intentions are much 
better than their system. They do not suspect the mortal blows 
which they are giving to our churches ; they do not know that the 
dry wind which arose in the vast desert of the eighteenth century, 
and whose breath appears so agreeable to them, will cause 
vegetation to cease, and will strike with barrenness the whole 
field of the Lord. Their views are perhaps limited ; their inten- 
tions are perhaps praiseworthy ; they are urged on by that unfor- 
tunate desire which has already worked so much evil to the 
Churchy while desiring its good, and against which Jesus with 
such earnestness has warned his disciples ; the desire of recon- 
ciling the spirit of the world with the spirit of the gospel— the 
spirit of the age with the spirit of immutable and eternal wisdom. 
They think that by harmonizing the wisdom oft he world and the 
wisdom of God, the great secret will be discovered ; they regard 
themselves as called upon to accomplish this great design. 
Doubtless they think in this way to effect good for the ivorld> and 
good for the Church ; but what happens ? They strongly resemble 
him who, in order to cure a person attacked with a fatal malady, 
should pretend that he must begin by communicating to the 
physician the disease of the sick man* instead of making the sick 
man take the remedy of the physician. What ^would be the 
result ? They would both die. These are quite different proceedings 
from those revealed to us by the Word of God ; it knows nothing of 
the petty expedients of human wisdom ; it says : — I will destroy the 
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to naught the understanding 
of the prudent. Where is the wise ? Where is the scribe ? 
Where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not God made foolish 
the wisdom of this world ?f Those who do not fear these words, 
and who wish to comprehend them, may comprehend them. 
Is Protestantism anything else than Christianity ? Is it a modified 

* 1 John v. 20-21. t 1 Cor. i. 19, 20. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM* 127 

Christianity, having certain attributes not possessed by primitive 
Christianity ? - Perhaps this question is not quite plain. We 
would ask you, then, do these words, Christianity, Catholicism,* 
Protestantism, cause three distinct ideas to arise in your mind ? It 
is probable they do. In this case, in our opinion, you are wrong ; 
these three words are only two things, — Christianity and Protestant- 
ism being two expressions to signify the same thing. Properly 
speaking, there is no Protestantism ; Christianity is sufficient 
for us. Protestantism is revived Christianity — but revived abso- 
lutely such as it was. We do not see why, after his resurrection, 
one ought to be re- baptized. Lazarus was, and called himself, 
Lazarus after, as before his resurrection. It is unfortunate that a 
new denomination was given to the reformed religion in the six- 
teenth century ; we think it would have been better to have called 
it simply Christianity, or even Catholicism, in opposition to the 
Church of the Pope. But as names are only names, and words 
are only words, we will leave them as they are, and will content 
ourselves with protesting against the idea — against the thing. 

We declare, then, with all the reformers, that Protestantism is 
Christianity, neither more nor less ; all, that tends to make of it 
anything else, with particular colors, with principles which are 
peculiar to it, and still more strange doctrines, are the unnatural, 
since these remove it so far from Christianity, that is to say, from 
itself. 

Is it necessary to cite here passages from our reformers to prove 
that they never pretended to form a new Church, but simply to 
re-establish the old one ? I think we all know, that this would 
be to cite their whole works, for this is the principle which they 
constantly set forth. Ought we to be astonished, however, if the 
powerful hand of these great men of God is impressed, perhaps a 
little strongly, on their works, in such a way that human traces 
are to be perceived by the side of divine ones ; and if the reform- 
ed churches have somewhat forgotten, if not during the lifetime 
of the Reformers, at least shortly after, that they w T ere anything but 
a continuation, a repetition of the first churches of Jesus ? Glory 
be ascribed, notwithstanding, to the Protestant Churches, or 
rather to Him who preserved them, this tendency of derivation was 
imperceptible ; they were truly redeemed Churches. But the evil 
which has been suppressed shines forth, especially in our days ; 
in our days the abomination has been introduced into the sanc- 
tuary, and an idol has been made of Protestantism. But as Paul 
and Barnabas rent their clothes before the pagans who wished to 
sacrifice to them, so Protestantism rejects with indignation these 
sacrilegious honors : it declares that it is nothing in itself, and 
attributing all honor to that Gospel which is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one which believeth, it exclaims — Salva- 
tion to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb. 

We think the period has arrived, in which the slight human 

* We use the word Catholicism not in its true sense, but in the narrow 
sense, which is usually given to it in conversation, meaning the Church of 
Rome. 



128 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

foot-prints, necessarily imposed upon the work of the reformers, 
ought to be effaced ; in which Protestant Churches ought every- 
where to become solely Christian churches, placing themselves 
above Rome, not simply opposite to her, seizing the sceptre of 
catholicity, and banishing popery into the obscurity which belongs 
to it. Protestant Churches ! let us seat ourselves on the twelve 
thrones of the apostles ; let us proclaim and show ourselves the 
hereditary Churches of the Apostolic Churches of Jerusalem,* Anti- 
och, Ephesus, Philippi, Rome. Let us seek our armor whence Apos- 
tolic men drew theirs ; that arsenal which is of so much more 
avail than that of the philosophy of the world. The time may 
not be distant when the Saviour will gather together the people : 
let us stand forth, as did our primitive brethren, to be the instruments 
of his mercy ; this is a greater, a nobler task, than to form an 
imaginary mixture of the faith of the Gospel and of the unbelief 
of the present age. 

Perhaps some one may say, It is erroneous to pretend that Pro- 
testantism is anything but Christianity ; it is undoubtedly Chris- 
tianity, but Christianity with a protest against Rome ; it is under 
some points of view a thing by itself ; this new situation gives it 
a new character, new duties ; in a word, renders it, in some re- 
spects, decidedly different from primitive Christianity. 

To this we reply ; if Protestantism is nothing else than 
Christianity, then Christianity has been nothing from the begin- 
ning but Protestantism. Has it not always protested against 
Rome, and is not this one of its essential features ? Has there been 
an age in which the Church was not filled with Protestants ? Was 
not St. Paul a good protestant, when in a prophetic tone he wrote 
to the Church of Rome, If thou boastest thyself thou shalt be cut off!* 
or when he wrote to Timothy : in the latter times some shall depart 
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils ; 
forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats, etc ?f Was 
not St. John a Protestant, when, seeing the woman seated upon seven 
mountains and arrayed in purple and scarlet, he called her, " the great 
Babylon, the mother of harlots and the abominations of the 
earth."{ 

Was not Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, the disciple of St. John, 
a Protestant, when he refused to celebrate Easter like Anicetus, 
bishop of Rome,— placing before him the example of the beloved 
disciple, who served him as a guide ?§ Were not all the churches 
of Asia Minor Protestant, when, caring little for the proud preten- 
sions of Victor, bishop of Rome, they quietly opposed to him the 
doctrines established in their apostolic seats, sedes apostolical ?|| Was 
not Irenseus, bishop of Rome, a Protestant, when he rebuked 
Victor, — reproaching him with his anti- Christian proceedings, 
which were unknown to his predecessors ?H Was not Cyprian, 
bishop of Carthage, a Protestant, when he established, with so 
much force, the independence of the bishops, and accomplished 

* Romans xi. 20-22. \ 1 Tim. iv. 1, etc. 

t Rev. xvii. Rome is built, as everybody knows, upon seven hills. 

§ The year 162. || The years 190 and 196. H Eusebius. Lib. 5, cap 24. 



CHRISTIiVNITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 129 

that which he thought right, in spite of the opposition of Rome ? 
When writing, in his own and in the name of the synod, to 
Stephanus/bishop of Rome, concerning a point in which he differed 
from him, he spoke to him as a colleague, possessing the same 
right and dignity with himself, saying : " By virtue of the honor 
which is common to us, and of the love we have for thee, we have 
thought it our duty to communicate to thee these things, believing 
that that which is conformable to truth and piety will please 
thee in like manner, agreeably to thy love of truth, very dear 
brother ! Besides, we well know that there are those who do not 
wish to cast away opinions which they have once received, and 
who do not readily change their sentiments, but who, without 
prejudicing the bonds of peace and concord, which ought to unite 
colleagues, preserve certain things that are peculiar to themselves, 
which have been once established among them. We do no violence, 
and give no laws to persons in such things ; " for whosoever is 
set over a Church, of his own free will, need render an account of 
his actions only to God."* *,\ i 

And after the violent declarations of Stephen, was not this same 
Cyprian a Protestant, and as much of a Protestant as Luther or 
Calvin, or ourselves, when, chiding the errors of the Roman 
bishop, whom he accused of sustaining the cause of heretics 
against Christians, of saying contradictory things, etc. (quo lecto 
magis ac magis ejus error em denotabis, qua hcereticorum causam contra 
Christianos et contra Ecclesiam Dei asserere conatur. Nam inter ccetera 
vel superba, vel ad rein non pertinentia, vel sibi ipsi contraria, quae 
imperite atque improvide scripsit, etc.), he adds respecting that 
which Stephen called Roman traditions: " From whence does this 
tradition come ? Is it derived from the words of the Lord, and the 
authority of the Gospel ? Does it proceed from the doctrines and 
epistles of the apostles? What obstinacy and presumption to 
place human tradition before the divine commands, and to think that 
God is not angry whenever human tradition destroys the divine 
precepts, as the Saviour has said in the Gospel. " For laying aside 
the commandments of God, ye hold the traditions of men." The 
usages which are introduced among some, cannot hinder truth 
from prevailing, and bearing off the victory ; for usage without 
truth is only a worn-out error (nam consuetudo sine veritate, vetustas 
erroris est) ; therefore forsake error and follow truth, knowing that 
truth will achieve the victory, as it is written : truth dwells, and 
lives for ever. If we but return to the source and origin of the 
divine tradition, human error ceases. If an aqueduct which 
formerly gave water in abundance, suddenly fails, do we not go 
back to the source to discover the cause, to see if the veins have 
been dried up, or the source itself has been exhausted, or, if 
running from the source as freely as before, to see if the water 

*Qud in re nee nosvim cuiquam J 'animus, aut legem damns: cum habet in 
Ecchsice administratione voluntatis suos arbitrium liberum unusquisque prceposi- 
tus, rationem actus sui Domino redditurus ( Cypr., Epist. 71 ad Stephanum). 
It is to the bishop of Rome that Cyprian writes, no one need render an 
account of his actions only to God ! Utinam ubique ! 
6* 



130 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

has been stopped in its course ? And if it happens that the aque- 
duct drinks up the water, or that it is broken in the centre, is it 
not immediately repaired, so that the water may flow in its channel, 
for the use of the town, as abundantly as it flows from its source ? 
We see in this the duty of the ministers of God, charged with the 
preservation of the divine precepts. If the truth has been corrupt- 
ed, and has wavered in anything, let us return to the origin of 
the Lord, and of the Gospel — to the tradition of the apostles, etc.* 
We despair of finding the principles of Protestantism more clearly 
expressed in the writings of Luther and of Calvin, than in 
this passage of Cyprian. Who can say after this, that Cyprian 
was not a Protestant ? Finally, was not the bishop Firmilian of 
Caesarea, in Cappadocia, a Protestant, who accused Stephen, the 
bishop of Rome, of rending the unity of the Church by his con- 
duct — full of ambition and bitterness ; and who opposed to the 
pretended tradition of the Roman Church, the tradition of the 
most ancient churches, and likewise many dogmatic proofs ; and 
who showed that the Romans did not retain the primitive tradition, 
and appealed in vain to the authority of the apostles, since in so 
many things they departed from the usage of the Church of 
Jerusalem, and of other ancient apostolic churches ? Is it neces- 
sary to quote here all the Protestants of following ages, who in- 
creased in numbers and strength in proportion as the usurpations 
of Rome multiplied ? Yes ! since Protestantism is even now nothing 
but Christianity ; so, likewise, it has never been anything else than 
Christianity. We do not wish to be better Protestants than John 
or Paul ! We do not think we have dwelt too long on this point, 
for it is equally important to prove this point to the Romanists, 
and to the innovators : both must know that there is not a Christi- 
anity and a Protestantism, but that they are one and the same ; that 
truth is not divided into many distinct beings, but that she is, from 
the beginning of time to the end of the world, one and indivisible. 
Further, it must be observed, that this new Protestantism, which 
seeks to be introduced in place of the old, is in effect different from 
Christianity ; in some respects, it is even totally opposed to it. It 
has preserved but a single feature of true Protestantism ; but 
making Protestantism to consist almost exclusively of this feature, 
it has, in so doing, rendered it not easily recognized. Freedom of 
examination, which we have sufficiently defended on all occasions, 
and are still ready to maintain against and towards all, is the 
feature to which we allude. This imprescriptible right of man 
and of Christians, which is absolutely necessary to attain religion, 
but which (in the present age it ought to be proclaimed on the 
house-tops) is not religion itself \ but is the Gospel of this new sect, 
is the burden of all their writings, and they speak of it with as much 
enthusiasm as ever St. Paul spoke of the cross of Jesus Christ. They 
take the scaffolding, necessary to the construction of an edifice, for 
the edifice itself — the disputed right of those who wish to enter 
into the kingdom of God, for the precious and eternal privileges 
of those who are already within it. 

* Cypr., Epist. 74 ad Pompeium contra Mpistolam Stephani. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 131 

No ! in vain would they build this new Protestantism on the 
ruins of the old Protestantism ; no one would recognize it as the 
true one. It is not sufficient to take a part of the antique and 
venerable temple, whatever trouble they may give themselves to 
adorn it with new ornaments ; it must be taken entire. If they 
have only a part, they have nothing. What would be said of 
persons who, wishing to construct a new ^house, in place of an- 
other which appeared to them out of fashion, should erect only a 
door, only an entrance, and then exclaim: come and see with 
what skill we have constructed a beautiful edifice in place of the 
old house, which was only fit for an ignorant age ! Yes, is the 
reply, but we could seat ourselves in the old house, but in yours 
there is nothing upon which to repose ; the old house afforded us 
a shelter from the wind and rain, but, alas ! you have provided 
nothing to protect us from the tempests. So is it with this new 
religion ; its fa9ade is superb ; philosophy and literature are ex- 
hausted for its embellishment, but behold all ! Oh ye who are 
weary and heavy laden ! there is nothing here to give rest to 
your souls ; Oh ye, who are pursued by the shadows of life, 
you will not find here that refuge which is necessary for you, 
the secret place of the Most High, where one shall dwell in the 
shadow of the Almighty.* We are reminded of that faithful soul, 
who, ongoing out from listening to the discourse of one of the 
adepts in this new religion, said : I was hungry and you gave me no 
meat, thirsty and ye gave me no drink. 

And after all, what is this liberty of investigation, concerning 
which there is so much boasting ? Certainly it is not of the genuine 
stamp, and we do not see that it can even lead to much good. As far 
removed from Christianity as is the Church of Rome with its in- 
supportable authority, so far removed is the pretended Protestant- 
ism that we oppose, with its examination, in which it takes away 
all means of examination. God who knows man, his nature, his 
wants, the limits of his intelligence, has in his infinite love pro- 
vided for his weakness ; he has aimed to come to his assistance ; 
he has declared that he himself would be his guide, his interpre- 
ter, his light, his true friend in the examination of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. There is no promise more clear, more consoling, none 
dearer to the children of God in the divine Word. How many are 
there now among men of letters and among the unlettered, of whom 
the prophet Isaiah speaks in the 29th chapter, 10 — 12, saying: 
" For the Lord hath poured out upon yon the spirit of deep sleep, 
and hath closed your eyes; the prophets and your rulers, the seers 
hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the 
words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is 
learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I cannot ; 
for it is sealed : And the book is delivered to him that is not 
learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I am not 
learned 1" Thus there are always men in all ranks, of different de- 
grees of mental culture, who have well turned and re-turned, and 
examined on all sides the Holy Scriptures ; they do not understand 

# Psalm xci. 1. 



132 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

them because they are as a sealed book to them. But ever blessed 
be the God of our salvation ! He has declared that he himself will 
unseal this book, and will open the eyes of the humble and the 
poor, so that whosoever will address himself to Him, shall see ; he 
shall see that which he never would have seen, had he remained 
alone. And the deaf (adds the prophet in the same chapter, 18 — 
19) shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out 
of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy 
in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of 
Israel. Especially are these promises of assistance to men in their 
search after truth, and for understanding of the Scriptures, re- 
peated in holy Scripture. The Lord said to the Messiah in the 
same prophecy : I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light 
of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes. And I will bring the blind 
by a way that they knew not ; I will lead them in paths that they have not 
known : I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things 
straight; these things will I do unto them and not forsake them. Jere- 
miah announces the nature of the new covenant that he predicts : 
" I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts, and will be their God and they shall be my people. And 
they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man 
his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for they shall all know me 
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." 
The Saviour of the world himself says : Ask, and it shall be given 
you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. If ye 
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how 

MUCH MORE SHALL YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER GIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT TO 

them that ask him ?* In St. John, he renews these promises in 
the most positive manner : The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
THiNGS.f But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
you into all truth. He shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, 
and shall show it unto you. In the Gospel, we see Jesus himself 
acting upon his disciples, who had been with him already three 
years, to enlighten their minds yet darkened, as are the minds of 
men by nature, that they might understand the Scriptures : Then 
opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures. % 
And the apostle Paul, who had experienced with the faithful at 
Corinth, the efficacy of these precious promises, in speaking to 
them of the things of salvation, of the counsels of God, contained 
in the Scriptures, and whose search ought to be the object of 
Christian examination, said : Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man, the things vjhich God hath prepared 
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by 
his Spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things 
of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the 
Spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things that are 
freely given to us of God. But the natural^ man receiveth not the 

* Luke xi. 9—13. t John xiv. 26. $ Luke xxiv. 45. 

§ Our French translations appear to me to be very defective here; they 
have adopted the interpretation of the Vulgate, which translates animahs 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 133 

things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
can lie know them, because they are spiritually discerned ; but he that is 
spiritual judgeth all things. 

Now this new Protestantism passes by the illumination of the 
Holy Spirit ; it is ignorant, or feigns to be ignorant, of all these 
promises of our God— constantly calling upon men to examine 
with their reason alone, — with its imperfections, its limited facul- 
ties, its ignorance ; without dependence on and invocation of the 
Spirit of God. It does not perceive that reason is a glass, which 
it is necessary to employ, it is true, but it is a glass dimmed by 
the breath of sin, and that it must first be made clear before we 
can see well by its means (that God may enlighten the eyes of your 
understanding, is the expression of St. Paul), and that God, the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, — the Spirit of wisdom and of 
revelation, can alone do this. Thus it deprives the faithful of the 
succor that God, in his infinite wisdom, had designed for them; 
it separates them from their God ; it isolates them ; it leaves them 
in their weakness ; — in their darkness ; it exalts that pride which 
should be destroyed. What shall I say ! Oh ! blindness, which 
causes the Christian soul to tremble ! It lifts itself up against the 
holy doctrines of the Bible, and calls the promises and commands 
of our God enthusiasm, mysticism ! " They be blind leaders of the 
blind," says the Saviour, " and, if the blind lead the blind, they shall 
both fall into the ditch." 

What would result from this, but that man, left ro himself, would 
fashion a doctrine entirely different in effect from Christianity ? 

We shall not pause here to pass in review the different funda- 
mental doctrines of the Christian religion, by dwelling at length 
on each one of them. We have before us the assurance that 
there is not one of these doctrines which this new Protestantism has 
not either corrupted or rejected ; many of its doctrines it has even 
attacked with enmity ; and a rapid glance will suffice to show 
that the Protestantism which exists apart from Christianity, differs, 
in fact, entirely from it. 

homo. I prefer the English and German translations, which render it the 
natural man. "O t/zv^u-c?, says the Greek : that is, literally, the man of the 
soul; that is to say, man with his soul and the faculties with which' it is 
endowed in its natural and unregenerated state; and the man, ifjvxixos, is put 
in opposition to the man TrvevftariKos, that is to say, the man enlightened by the 
nvevfjia, the Spirit of God, the spiritual man. The word animal being doubtless 
derived from the Latin anima, soul, the French translation may have appeared 
the most literal. But the word animal is taken in so different an acceptation 
in the French language, that such a translation involves a great error; this 
is proved by the blunder made by the Academy in its dictionary. " Animal" 
it says, " in the language of Scripture, signifies carnal, sensual, and is the 
opposite of spiritual, V homme animal ne comprend pas ce qui est de Dieu. 
But the Greek word rendered here by animal, xpvx^os, is as different from 
carnal, aapKiKos, as in French dme is different from chair. The three scrip- 
tural expressions, 6' -rrvevixariKog, o xpv%iKos, b' capKixos, designate three classes of 
men entirely distinct ; and nothing can be more erroneous than to make 
one of the last two. A distinction, definition, etc., etc., of these three classes, 
would give us the scriptural philosophy of human nature. We may, per- 
haps, return to this subject hereafter. 



134 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

With regard to the fundamental doctrine, not only of religion, 
but, we might almost say, of all true philosophy — the doctrine of 
the corruption of man, the existence of evil within us, — we know how 
the new Protestantism treats the passage on this subject, and that 
it does not hesitate to say that the declarations of Scripture on this 
point are but the figures of lyric poetry. This idea of seeing images 
and figures everywhere is, of all modes invented up to this time, 
the most expeditious for putting aside Christianity. There are 
those among the new Protestants of Germany, who see, in the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ, only a figure, — an image. We must 
acknowledge that our new Protestants, through the restraining 
grace of God, have not yet gone so far. 

Concerning the real divinity of Jesus Christ, and. the worship 
of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed 
for ever, that foundation of the Christian faith, we know what 
these new Protestants believe, and the pretended absurdities 
which they, in common with all unbelievers, find in this holy and 
glorious doctrine. 

Justification by faith in the powerful merits of the great Victim 
of expiation, offered up for the sinner who repents and believes, 
is to this one-sided Protestantism a scandal and a folly. It main- 
tains, with the Romish Church, the merit of works ; not knowing 
that truly good works can proceed only from a heart touched and 
regenerated by the grace of God, and full of gratitude and love, 
and that, consequently, the best method of rendering all good 
works impossible, is just to hold that man is not saved by grace 
alone, but partly by his merits, partly by the works of the law. 

Concerning the doctrine of regeneration, of the new birth by the 
Holy Spirit, they would introduce into our Reformed Churches 
their images and oriental figures ; a terra incognita, of which its 
patrons understand less than did Nicodemus when Jesus taught 
him this fundamental truth of the kingdom of God ; so that we 
might say to some of them, as Jesus said to the Pharisee, " Art 
thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things ?" 

How shall we give even a passing notice of the crowd of 
errors which flow from this new religion, and which are sought 
to be thrust upon Protestants as great truths ? This is especially 
manifest in that which regards the doctrines of the Church ; it is 
there that they move in thick darkness. We will attend for a 
moment to a single example. 

Unity in the Church of Christ, is not only one of the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Gospel, but likewise one of the greatest 
benefits promised by the Saviour to his people. Jesus himself, 
in his sacrificial prayer, had invoked this unity among his own, 
and announced it unto them with the same breath ; this could 
not have been a unity to exist only for the Apostles, but likewise 
for all who, in whatever place and in whatever age, should be- 
lieve in Christ through their words. " Neither pray I for these 
alone ; but for them also which shall believe on me through their 
words : that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and 
I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 135 

believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gav- 
est me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are 
one ; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect 
in unity." And would not this request of the Saviour, made at 
the solemn moment when he was about to make his voluntary 
expiation for the sins of the world, be accomplished ? The Apos- 
tles speak continually of this unity of the true people of God : of 
all those who are truly, and not in name only, members of the 
body of Christ. So we, say they, being many, are one body in 
Christ. For, they add, by one Spirit are we all baptized into one 
body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or 
free. There is neither, they still further say, Jew nor Greek, there is 
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, ye are all one in 
Christ. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one 
hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and 
Father of all. These words are explicit, and we could cite many 
others equally so. Now, how does this Protestantism, which is 
distinct from Christianity, treat this unity demanded by the Prince 
of life himself for his Church, which he has promised, and which 
the holy Apostles have proclaimed ? It says, that unity is a phi- 
losophic invention; it speaks of the folly, of the thirst, of the fury of 
unity'; it adds that despotism, fanaticism, tyranny, exclusiveness, 
arbitrariness, are species of unity, or forms of unity, or means of 
unity, and that the most forcible objections which human reason 
can conceive may be urged against unity : that it is absurd, fatal, 
impossible ; such, according to it, is the doctrine of Protestantism. 
Having placed the words of the Lord and his Apostles side by side 
with those of the new Protestantism, there remains nothing but to 
keep silence. The stones, if they could, would cry out. We cannot 
conceive how it is possible so entirely to put away the Gospel, 
and to substitute for it the vain dreams of the imagination. May 
the time be far distant when these shall be the doctrines of your 
Protestantism ! True Protestantism, however, casts it far from 
her. To the Law, and to the Testimony ! if they speak not ac- 
cording, it is because there is no light in them, — and they shall 
look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness 
of anguish ; and they shall be driven to darkness. Thus it is, that 
the Romish Church on one hand, and Neology on the other, seem 
to be skilful in wandering, the one to the right, and the other to 
the left, from the path of truth and life, trodden by the people of 
God. The Romish Church hears unity spoken of; and forgetting 
that the words of Jesus are spirit and life, that his reign is in the 
heart, that the question is concerning a unity of spirit, she invents 
an actual unity of appearance, a patched up unity, a unity of uni- 
form and parade ; provided its recruits all wear, whether good or 
bad, the same dress, the same cockade, and that at the same word 
they all turn their heads at the same moment, this is all that is 
necessary ; the heart is not her domain ; they may differ in spirit 
as far as the heavens differ from the earth ; no matter ! her con- 
cern is with that which appears to be, and not with that which is. 



136 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

When we think of the infinite number of different opinions 
inclosed in the body called the Romish Church, is it not laughable 
to see this unformed mass baptized by the name of unity ? It is 
the unity of chaos, and darkness is on the face of the deep. For, 
provided you carry a torch in a procession, or still more, provided 
you yield to importunities and mark your last moments by a few 
ceremonies, whatever else you may think in your sleeve, the Romish 
Church will acknowledge you as her child. But neology goes by a 
still easier reckoning, and needs not observe so many forms ; it pro- 
claims itself an army without standard, and a people without any 
common law ; it declares that all its agreement consists in agree- 
ing upon nothing. The unity of the Romish Church is the Prus- 
sian drill ; the unity of the innovators is a Cossack band, each one 
moving as it pleases him. People of God ! such is not your life 
and your unity ! Those whom he predestinated, them he also called ; 
whom he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also 
glorified; and those who have been the objects of this eternal 
grace, are one in heart at the foot of the cross ; redeemed unto God 
by the blood of the Lamb, washed, sanctified, justified, by the name 
of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God, built upon the 
foundation of the Apostles and prophets ; Jesus Christ himself 
being the Chief Corner Stone, out of every kindred, and tongue, 
and people, and nation ; they are the true Church of God upon earth ; 
they are the true body of Christ, and they are one, as their Master 
has promised. Oh, ye, who may perchance read these lines, 
whatever language you speak, in whatever country you have had 
your birth, whatever may be the external confession to which 
you belong, I call you to witness that we are but one ! We are 
but one body, we have only one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, 
one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and among 
all, and in all . We are one with the Church which is in Heaven, 
and with that which is still upon earth. Let those who are with- 
out, reject with contempt the unity that our Saviour and our God 
has promised to his people ; but as for us, we guard it as a pre- 
cious jewel, and it constitutes our joy and glory ! 

There is, without doubt, a great error in that Protestantism 
which places itself out of Christianity. Perhaps we may take, as 
a ready example, another, and in some respects still more import- 
ant one, which introduces into evangelical Christianity one of the 
most dangerous vices of Rome, and threatens to rob the Church 
of its liberty, its glory, its greatness, and to drag it down to shame- 
ful chains. But who will not feel the dangers that would encom- 
pass our Churches, if this philosophic-religious system, the child 
of the past century — if this Protestantism which is distinct from 
Christianity, could prevail therein ? The necessary consequence 
would be to take away all life from the evangelical Churches. 
They will turn aside the river that waters the roots of this beauti- 
ful tree, causing it to yield its fruit in its season, and a dry and 
barren soil will quickly cause it to cast its foliage. Our Churches 
must be more strongly rooted in Christianity, in the Gospel; it is 
only from them they can receive life. Transplant them into the 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 137 

soil of worldly philosophy, as they pretend to do, and you will 
soon see them perish. What is it which has revived them ? Is 
it not divine grace, evangelical sermons, the Bibles of the Bible 
Societies, the living spirit of the Missionary Societies ? This is 
the way in which it must walk. The Protestantism, which is 
Christianity, is the spiritual lever of the world ; it has received a 
commission to diffuse light and life throughout the families of the 
earth. The Protestantism which is not Christianity, is only good 
as it is the occasion of a little wit, and to give birth to some pages 
which amuse the ennui of their readers. Let us then plunge our 
roots in the spring of living water, and let us not, alas ! plant the 
tree of our faith in broken cisterns which hold no water. 

It is not only Protestantism considered as Christianity, which 
has to fear this new direction ; it is likewise Christianity consi- 
dered as Protestantism, that is in its struggle with Rome. In this 
exigency, the best method of obtaining strength, is to be vivified 
by the vital doctrines of faith. The best, or rather the only 
ground, on which we can meet -and oppose to advantage the 
usurper who has established his camp, with all his hosts, on the 
seven hills, is that of the Apostles and Reformers. How would 
the branches be able to offer their fronts to the wind and battle 
with the tempest, if their roots did not derive from the depths of 
the earth their strength and their life ? And what would become 
of soldiers who should fight continually without ever partaking 
of food or rest ? They would soon become wan skeletons, which 
the least breath could overthrow. 

We would ask, in closing this article : Is it a shadow we have 
been fighting ! Pastors of our Churches ! you know. Do you 
find among your flocks any error more general and more opposed 
to the propagation of Christianity, of the true Christian life, than 
that which consists in believing that, provided one is called a good 
Protestant, all will go well ; that if he rejects the superstitions of 
Rome, her images, her processions, her saints, in a word (to use 
the happy expression of a French Christian universally distin- 
guished by his birth, his talents, and his piety), if he is a negative 
Protestant, he is on the way to heaven. Is there an evil which 
strikes more directly and deeply at the root of piety ? 

If there are some shepherds who do not find this evil in their 
flocks, we rejoice and bless God for it ; but we have heard the 
complaints and sighs of many, and this has induced us to lift up 
our voice in the Churches, that, weak but faithful sentinels, we 
might announce the danger which threatens Zion. 

Faithful, beloved brethren ! raised in the bosom of this Evan- 
gelical Church caused by the Lord to spring up in the midst of 
darkness, to lead many souls to light and life, it is not sufficient 
for your salvation that you are called in ordinary language a good 
Protestant. There is no Church which saves ; there is no more 
salvation in the Protestant than in the Romish Church ; salvation 
comes only through Jesus Christ. Neither is there salvation in any 
other ; for there is none other name under heaven given among 
men, whereby we must be saved. Do you not perceive, my dear 



138 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

friends, that this is exactly the error of the Roman Catholics ? Their 
capital crime is to put the Church in the stead of Jesus Christ, and 
to declare it is she who saves. And shall we commit the same 
fault ? Consider that it is not necessary that this error be acknow- 
ledged in doctrine, as is the case in the Romish Church ; it lives 
in our souls, if it renders us satisfied with ourselves, if it stops us in 
the way of life, if it hinders us from going as poor sinners to wash 
ourselves in that fountain opened on Golgotha/or sin and uncleanness, 
and which alone cleanseth us from all sin — this will ruin our souls ! 
No, no ! neither the communion of Luther nor of Calvin, and still less 
of this or of that neology, can save us any more than that of Pius 
VII. or of Leo XII. ; it is the communion of Jesus which saves. That 
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also 
may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the 
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Negative Protestantism is a 
comfortable cushion upon whichwe can quietly repose and slumber; 
we would that we were at this moment able to withdraw it from 
under the heads it pillows, even though it were a little roughly, 
so that falling naked to the ground they might awaken and seek 
that true point of support, which alone can give us peace of soul 
for time and for eternity. Friends and brethren ! These things 1 
say, that ye might be saved ; God knows, and our conscience bears 
us witness. Oh ! that every one to whom these leaves may come, 
would ask himself : I am a member of the Protestant Church, but 
am I a member of Christ ? I hold communion with those who 
have separated from Rome ; but do I hold communion with God ? 
I have separated myself from the abominations without, from the 
worship that is offered to creatures ; but have I separated myself 
from the corruption within, from that worship which makes self 
my idol ? Is there in me an energetic Protestantism against my- 
self, against sin which dwelleth in me, against the world and its 
lusts, against the devil and his works ? This is the Protestantism 
which affords salvation ! 

Friends and brethren ! Negative Protestantism is a first step, 
and we rejoice that you have taken it ; but would you stop here ? 
Alas ! you will lose the fruit of your first efforts. Is it sufficient to 
pull down an old and tottering edifice, and to remove the rubbish 
from its foundations ? This is the work of negative Protestantism. 
Shall we not also construct in its place a new building full of 
strength and bloom ? This is the^work of positive Protestantism ; 
and these two Protestantisms, united, form alone Christianity. We 
beseech you, then, by the eternal compassion of God, to go to the 
blood of Jesus, there to wash away your sins, and there to find 
peace for your souls. Do not rest until you have proved for your- 
selves the import of these words of our Saviour : " Except a man 
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Then will 
you be true Protestants, then will you be true Christians, then you 
would have, together with all the redeemed Churches, whether 
that which now triumphs in heaven or that which still struggles 
on earth, " one spirit, one faith, one baptism, one Lord, one Fa- 
ther." 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 139 

Pastors of Evangelical churches ! the task which has been al- 
lotted you is a great one. Our voice has been but the echo of 
yours ; and, if you have taken cognizance of the evil, you will 
the better know where to apply the remedy. Tender guardians 
of your flocks, you should zealously labor to guard believers 
against error, which, if not combated, would wither and destroy 
our Churches. We do not simply say that you should endeavor 
to make your hearers better Christians, still more firmly rooted and 
grounded in Christ, knowing that this is the only way of rendering 
them also better Protestants ; because for a long while you have 
done this. But perhaps you* may still judge it expedient, carefully 
to avoid everything which might improperly nourish, in your 
hearers, pride in the name of Protestant, without producing any- 
thing better. Undoubtedly you may, incite them I to consider 
the greatness of their advantages ; but you should hasten to 
add, that in proportion to the magnitude of these advantages are 
their tasks and obligations, and this should be the point upon 
which you should insist. You must proclaim from the eminence 
of the pulpit, that Protestantism is nothing else than Christianity ; 
that there is no Protestantism aside from Christianity ; and that to 
be a good Protestant is only to be a good Christian, such as were 
the primitive disciples at Jerusalem, at Antioch, at Philippi. 
Perhaps you will also think proper to devote some particular 
meditation to the development of this important truth, and in re- 
futation of the errors which are opposed to it, so that from one end 
of our Churches to the other, the standard of Christ alone may be 
lifted up, and that every new standard should prostrate itself be- 
fore that of the Prince of Life, and hide in the dust its false co- 
lors. But what need is there of our words, venerable leaders of 
our flocks ! God himself has implanted in your hearts the wel- 
fare of our Churches, and this flame, which already diffuses its 
genial warmth and rejoicing light, will not be extinguished. You 
have, so to speak, sent the words that we have uttered; our voice 
has been only your voice ; our cry is only your cry. Destitute 
ourselves of wisdom and life, to pretend to convey unto others 
what we have not received ourselves, will end in ridiculous and 
powerless attempts. 

Let silence then succeed to our word, and all listening to the 
voice of the Master who is in heaven, but who now speaks with 
so much power to the angels of his Churches, let us labor toge- 
ther with God, not only to strengthen the walls of Zion, but also 
to multiply in its bosom, abundance, life and peace. 

Have we been severe ? Determined not to go beyond this, have 
we confounded men with their wickedness and faults ? We think 
not. We have avoided all personalities ; our concern is with 
things and not with individuals. If we have contended against 
systems which appeared to us dangerous, we are ready to tender 
the hand to those who entertain them, as to brethren descended 
from the same Father with ourselves. How great would be our 
joy could we see talents that we appreciate, employed in that 
which can alone bring prosperity to our Churches ! Friends, we 



140 CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 

trust you possess in your hearts the same desires as ourselves. Do 
you not perceive that every period of revival in the Church has 
been effected by its vital doctrines, by the spirit of power and of 
life in the Gospel, and not. by the efforts of reason or of human 
philosophy ? Have we not heard you sometimes joyfully declare 
that it is in these doctrines alone the Church can find her hopes 
of salvation ? Why then at another period do you oppose these 
doctrines ? Are you not delighted, do you not boast as Protest- 
ants, of the admirable labors of England and America, of their 
Bible Societies and their Missions ? All who compose those So- 
cieties are one with us ; the same principles that we maintain and 
have mentioned, are those that animate them. Why then should 
that which is the subject of your praise beyond the sea, be on 
this side the object of your attack, of your blame, perhaps of your 
ridicule ? How can you praise the effects at a distance, and com- 
bat the causes near at hand ? How can you present the labors of 
our British and American brethren as a model, at the same time 
that you rob your brethren on the Continent of the only means, 
the only power by which they might become their imitators ? 
No ! no ! you are doubtless deceived, and we call upon yourselves 
to be better informed of yourselves. There is, it is true, a great 
temptation in this walking in accordance with the reigning worldly 
spir , defending Protestantism as a species of ecclesiastical liber- 
alism, and even in being praised by the organs of public opinion. 
But are you not called to resist and to overcome this temptation ? 
Public opinion may be of some value ; we approve it. But 
evangelical Christianity has received a nobler vocation than that 
of following in the suite of the world ; it is at the head she must 
walk, strong in her own principles and borrowing from none. He, 
who walks only in the track of the multitude, may render a few 
services to humanity ; but he who remains immoveable in truth, 
opposing a brazen front to the course of the world in every- 
thing that is wrong, obliging it, by his perseverance, to turn 
aside from its sinuous paths into the straight path of rectitude, 
allowing threatenings, injuries, violent language, and ridicule, 
to blunt their darts against the buckler of his faith ; he will gain 
the crown and will have fought the good fight. Such is our vo- 
cation ; friends, shall it not be yours ? 

It is this vocation to which you look forward, pupils of our 
Churches ! Levites, who are growing up in the shadow of the 
sanctuary, and who learn in our schools what is the wisdom, the 
righteousness, the sanctification, the redemption, that you are one day to 
proclaim to the people, to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified, 
remember, that if you walk in the doctrines of faith, you will 
follow in the footsteps of the greatest and the noblest of the hu- 
man race ; in. the path of Abraham, of David, of Isaiah, of John, 
of Paul, of Peter, of Polycarp, of Ignatius, of Justin, of Cyprian, 
of Origen, of Chrysostom, of Augustine, of Bernard, of Wickliffe, 
of Waldo, of Huss, of Luther, of Melancthon, of Calvin, of Zuin- 
gle, of Favel, of Knox, of Mornay, of Malbranche, Drelincourt, 
Claude, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bacon and Newton, Pascal and many 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROTESTANTISM. 141 

others who have all believed the same that we believe ; and 
above all, you will walk with Jesus Christ who has taught them. 
But should you abandon these doctrines for those sought to be 
substituted in their stead, you will drag along in the shameful 
steps of some pretended philosophers, with some obscure neolo- 
gians of different countries, who are only known for their extra- 
vagances and for the evil they have wrought to the Church of the 
Saviour. Be ye not deceived ; the vain objections they may 
offer to you are only the trifles of wits and sciolists, of superficial 
minds, who fall back before the steps of truth. All their pre- 
tended wisdom is only foolishness with God ; the gifted, the 
choice spirits of the world, not allowing themselves to be deterred 
by these vain sports, have embraced eternal truth as it is revealed 
in the word of God, and as our Churches have professed it from 
their birth. Repel, then, a poisoned blow, which will not only 
convey death to your own souls, but also to the flocks over which 
you shall be established overseers. Ascend the pulpits, to pro- 
claim from thence the powerful Word of Truth ; be the noble in- 
struments of God's mercy, and not the repeaters of man's inven- 
tions ! Find grace before God for your own souls ; your faces 
shall be enlightened by it, and you will reflect upon your brethren 
salvation and peace. Fear not the world. " He that is in you is 
greater than he that is in the world. Ye are of God, little chil- 
dren, and have overcome them." Christ says, " Lo I am with yon 
alway, even unto the end of the world, and all power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth." 
Oh God ! save thy church. It is tim& 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 



TRANSLATED BY M. M. BACKUS, 






FAMILY WORSHIP. 



As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. — Joshua xxiv. 15. 

Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. 
We have said on a former occasion, my brethren, that if we would 
die their death, we must live their life. Doubtless there are some 
cases in which the Lord manifests his grace and glory to man, on 
his death-bed, saying to him, as to the thief on the cross : To-day 
thou shalt he with me in paradise. The Lord, from time to time, gives 
such examples to the Church, thus to demonstrate his sovereign 
power, by which he can, if it please him, subdue the most 
hardened hearts, and convert the most alienated souls, causing us 
to see that all depends on his grace, and that he has mercy on 
whom he will have mercy. But these are only very rare excep- 
tions, upon which you cannot absolutely count ; and if you would 
have a Christian death, my dear hearers, you must have a Christian 
life — a heart truly converted to the Lord, truly ready for the king- 
dom, which, trusting only in the grace of Christ, desires to walk 
near Him. There are many means, my brethren, by which you 
can prepare yourselves during life, to obtain, one day, so blessed 
an end. To one of the most efficacious of these we would lead 
you to-day. This means is domestic worship ; that is to say, that 
edification which, day after day, a Christian family receives at the 
common altar. " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," 
said Joshua to Israel. We desire, my brethren, to present to you 
the motives which ought to lead you to this resolution of Joshua, 
and the necessary directions for its accomplishment. 

THE MOTIVES. 

Domestic worship is the most ancient as well as the most holy 
of institutions. It is not one of those innovations against which 
one is easily prejudiced ; it began with the world itself. 

It is evident that the first worship, which the first man and his 
children rendered to God, could be no other than family worship, 
since they were then the only family existing on the earth. Then 
began men, says the Scripture, to call upon the name of the Lord. 
Domestic worship must have been for along period the only wor- 
ship rendered in common to God ; for as the earth increased in 
population, each head of a family establishing himself alone, a 
priest unto God in the place in which his lot was cast, presented to 
7 






146 FAMILY WORSHIP. 

the Lord of all the earth, with his wife, his sons, his daughters, 
his men servants and his maid servants, the homage which was 
His due. It was only when by gradual increase men had infinitely 
multiplied, that different families dwelt near each other, and then 
came the idea of offering to God a common adoration, and public 
worship had birth. But domestic worship had become too pre- 
cious to the families of the children of God to be ^abandoned by 
them, and if they united with strange families in worshipping God, 
how much stronger reasons had they for persisting in adoring Him 
with their own families ? So, when leaving the cradle of the hu- 
man race, we transport ourselves under the tents of the patri- 
archs, we find there also this household worship. 

Go with the angels to the plains of Mamre, when Abraham sits 
at his tent-door in the heat of the day ; enter there with him and 
we shall see the patriarch, with all his house, offering a common 
sacrifice to God. " I know," said the Lord, speaking of the father 
of the faithful, " I know that he will command his children, and 
his house after him, to keep the way of the Lord, — to do that 
which is just and right." Public worship is established by Moses ; 
he gives many ordinances ; — a magnificent temple is to be raised. 
Will not domestic worship now be abolished ? No ; by the side 
of this temple, and all its magnificence, the meanest house of the 
faithful is to be filled with the Word of God. " These words 
which I command thee this day," said the Lord, by Moses, " shall 
be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine 
house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou 
liest down, and when thou risest up." Joshua, in our text, 
declares to the people that they, if they will, may adore idols, 
but that he will not mingle in their profane feasts, but with- 
draw into his own dwelling, — he and his house will serve the Lord. 
Job, rising early in the morning, sanctified his children, and offered 
burnt offerings according to the number of them all, saying : " It 
may be that my sons have sinned !" David, whose whole life is 
a continual adoration of God, and to whom a day passed in the 
courts of the Lord was better than a thousand days elsewhere, 
neglected not the domestic altar, when he exclaimed, " The things 
that our fathers have told us we will not keep from our children." 
Transporting ourselves to the times in which our Saviour appeared, 
we find domestic instruction in all the pious families of Israel. 
It is thus St. Paul was enabled to say to Timothy : " From a child 
thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation. I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith 
that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy 
mother Eunice ; and I am persuaded that in thee also." Jesus, 
during his ministry, laid the foundations of domestic worship 
among Christians, when he said : " Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there will I be in the midst of 
them." St. Paul recommends it by saying : " Rule well your 
own houses, having your children in subjection with all gravity ; 
speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 147 

singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord ; giving 
thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name 
of our Lord Jesus Christ." Yes, my brethren, if we penetrate into 
the humble dwellings of the early Christians, after having been 
under the tents of the patriarchs, we shall find there also, this 
same family worship offered to the Lord, we shall hear in the dis- 
tance those songs, which may have revealed the existence of the 
disciples of the Crucified to their persecutors, which they caused 
to ascend with joy before the throne of their Saviour, because they 
feared him rather than men ; we shall see them gathered together 
around these sacred books which they hide so carefully, lest they 
fall into the hands of those who would destroy them. 

An illustrious father of the Church, Clement of Alexandria, 
about the commencement of the third century, recommends to 
Christian wives to make common prayers and the reading of the 
Bible their daily morning employment: then, he adds, "The 
mother is the glory of her children, the wife is the glory of her 
husband; both are the glory of the wife, and God is the glory of 
all." And another father, not less celebrated, Tertullian, gave, a 
little while before, this admirable description of the domestic life 
of a Christian pair : " What a union is that which exists between 
two faithful ones, who have in common the same hope, the same 
desire, the same manner of life, the same service of the Lord : 
both as a brother and sister united according to the flesh, and 
according to the spirit, cast themselves together on their knees ; 
they pray and fast together ; they teach, they exhort, they mutu- 
ally support each other with gentleness ; they are together in 
the church of God, at the table of the Lord ; they partake* of pains, 
of persecutions, of joys ; the one hides nothing from the other, the 
one avoids not the other ; they visit the sick, they succor the 
needy.; psalms and hymns are heard resounding among them ; 
they strive to see which shall sing most fervently in the heart to 
God. Christ has joy in seeing and hearing these things, he sends 
them his peace. There, where two like these are found, he is 
found also ; and where he is no evil comes." 

Leaving the humble dwellings of the primitive Christians, it is 
true that we find domestic worship becoming gradually rarer ; 
but with splendor did it re-appear at the time of the Reformation. 
And what an influence did it then exercise on the faith, the man- 
ners, the intellectual development of these nations who return- 
ed to primitive Christianity ! The period is not very distant in 
which it was found in all evangelical families. If our fathers 
have been deprived of its light, our grandfathers at least knew it. 
It flourished especially in. the evangelical provinces of this king- 
dom, and we trust that numerous and precious fragments may yet 
be found. 

My brethren, such has been in all ages a life of piety. Shall 
we be such Christians or shall we not ? Do we wish to invent 
a new species of piety which shall agree very well with the 
world, or do we wish to retain that which God has ordained? 
Beholding this worship, which passed from the tents of the patri- 



148 FAMILY WORSHIP. 

archs into the dwelling of the first Christians, and at length estab- 
lished itself in the households of our fathers, shall we not say, 
" As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord ?" 

But, my brethren, if the love of God is in your heart, if you feel 
that, being purchased by a great price, you ought to glorify 
God in your body and spirits which are His, where will you de- 
light to honor him, if not in your own family, in your own house ? 
You love to unite with your brethren in rendering public homage 
to Him in his temples: you love to pour out your hearts before' 
him in your closet. Shall it be only in the presence of the per- 
son with whom he has associated your life, and of your children, 
that you do not wish to be employed with God ? Will it be pre- 
cisely there, that you will have no thanks to give ? Will it be pre- 
cisely there, that you will not have some favors, some protec- 
tion to implore ? You occupy yourself with everything in your 
intercourse with them. Conversation turns upon a thousand differ- 
ent objects ; cannot your tongue and your heart find a word for 
God ? Can you not lift up your voice in your family for Him who is 
the true father of your family ; can you not converse with your wife 
and children of Him, who may one day be the only husband of 
your wife, the only father of your children ? The Gospel has pro- 
duced a domestic society, which did not exist before it and can- 
not exist beyond it; it would seem then, that this society, full of 
gratitude to the God of the Gospel, ought to be especially conse- 
crated to Him; and above all, my brethren, such unions as fami- 
lies, who call themselves Christians, who have even a respect 
for religion, and where there is never a question raised concerning 
God. What is the condition of immortal souls, who have been 
united, who never ask themselves who has redeemed them, who 
has united them, what is their destiny, their future, their end ? 
What is the condition of those, who, seeking to aid each other in 
everything else, never think of assisting each other in "the one 
thing needful," of having a single conversation, of reading a single 
line, of pronouncing one prayer, which has reference to eternal 
interests ! Christian partners ! Is it then only in the flesh and for 
time that you desire to be united ? Is it not in spirit and for eter- 
nity? Are you then beings who have met only by chance, and 
whom a new chance, that of death, will soon separate ? Do 
you not wish to be united by God, in God, and for God? Reli- 
gion would unite your souls in immortal bonds ! But do not 
reject them ; every day increase their strength by the devotions 
of the domestic circle. Passengers, whom the same ship encloses, 
discourse of the place whither they go ; and you, voyagers on 
the same vessel towards an eternal world, can you not speak of 
that world, of the route which conducts you thither, of your 
hopes, your fears ? " For many walk, of whom I have told you 
often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies 
of the cross of Christ," says St. Paul; " for our conversation is in 
heaven ; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus 
Christ." But if you ought for yourselves to be employed for God in 
your dwellings, ought you not for those of your household, whose 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 149 

souls have been entrusted to you, especially for your own chil- 
dren ? You are much concerned for the prosperity, the temporal 
happiness of your own; but will not all this care cause your 
negligence in regard to their eternal prosperity and happiness to 
appear in the stronger light ? Your children are young trees which 
have been confided to you ; your house is the nursery in which they 
ought to grow; you are the gardener. Alas! would you plant 
these young and precious shrubs in barren sand ? And yet this 
is what does happen, if there is nothing in your house which 
causes them to increase in the knowledge and love of their God 
and Saviour. Will you not prepare a favorable soil, fit to give 
them sap and life ? What will become of your children in 
the midst of all the allurements which surround, and would 
lead them to evil ? What will become of them in this restless 
age, in which it is so necessary to strengthen the soul of a young 
man by the fear of God, thus giving to the frail bark the requisite 
ballast before launching it on the boundless ocean ? Parents ! 
in whose families your children find the spirit of piety, take 
pride, then, in adorning them with all manner of outward 
gifts, in introducing them into the society of the world, in 
granting all their whims, in allowing them to walk according to 
their own desires, and you will see them vain, proud, idle, diso- 
bedient, impertinent, extravagant ! They will treat you with con- 
tempt ; and the more fond the indulgence you have bestowed, the 
less will be the regard they will exercise towards you in return. 

It is such conduct as this, which is too often seen : but ask 
yourselves if you are not responsible for their bad habits and 
their wicked practices, and your conscience will reply that you 
are ; that you eat of the bread of bitterness which you have your- 
self prepared. May you learn from this, what has been your sin 
in neglecting the means in your power for acting on their heart, 
and may others be warned by your misfortune and educate their 
children in the fear of the Lord ! Nothing is more healthful for this 
end than domestic piety. Public worship is often too vague, too 
general, and not sufficiently interesting for children ; they know 
not how much of the worship in particular they are to take to 
themselves. Lessons properly recited, if they are alone, will per- 
haps easily induce them to regard religion as a study similar to 
that of foreign languages or of history. Example here as else- 
where, and even more than elsewhere, will effect more than pre- 
cept. It is not sufficient to teach them by means of elementary 
books, that it is their duty to love God, but we must also show 
them that we love him. If they see that no homage is paid to that 
God of whom they are told, the best instructions become useless ; 
but by means of family worship, these young plants will increase 
as a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his 
fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither: your children 
may quit the paternal roof; but they will recall in distant lands 
the prayers offered under that roof, and those prayers will protect 
them. If any one has children or nephews, let them learn first to 
show piety at home, says the Scripture. But if any provide not 



150 FAMILY WORSHIP. 

for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he'hath de- 
nied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 

What gentleness, what peace, what true felicity, will not a 
Christian family find in the establishment in its midst of the do- 
mestic altar, and uniting together in sacrificing to the Lord ! It is 
the employment of the angels in heaven ; and blessed are they 
who anticipate these pure and immortal joys ! " Behold how 
good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
unity ! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran 
down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard ; that went down to the 
skirts of his garment : for these the Lord commanded the .bless- 
ing, even life evermore." Oh, what kindness, what new life, 
piety spreads throughout a family ! In a house where God is for- 
gotten, there is harshness, ill humor, ennui. Without the know- 
ledge and the love of God, a family is but an aggregation of 
individuals, having for each other more or less of natural affec- 
tion ; but the true bond, the love of God our Father in Jesus Christ our 
Lord, is wanting. Poets are full of beautiful descriptions of do- 
mestic life ; but, alas ! the reality is often very different from their 
pictures ! Sometimes this arises from want of confidence in the 
providence of God, sometimes from the love of riches, sometimes 
from a difference in characters, or an opposition in principles. 
Oh ! what troubles, what miseries in the bosoms of families ! 
Domestic piety will prevent all these evils; one can draw from it 
a perfect confidence in the God who " feedeth the birds of the 
air ;" we can draw from it a real love for all those with whom we 
are called to live ; not an exacting, suspicious love, but a merciful 
love, which excuses and forgives, like that of God himself; not 
a proud love, but a love humble, and accompanied by a feeling of 
its own faults, of its own misery ; not a changing love, but a love 
as immutable as eternal charity. " A voice of singing, of triumph, 
and of deliverance, resounds in the tabernacle of the just." 
When the hour of trial comes, that hour which sounds sooner or 
later, and oftener more than once in the dwellings of men, what 
powerful consolation will domestic piety afford ! Where are trials 
experienced, if not in the bosom of families ? Where then but in 
the bosom of families ought the remedy for trials to be found ? 
What grief is there in an afflicted family which has not this con- 
solation ! The different persons who compose it, mutually 
increase their sorrow. But if, on the other hand, the family loves 
God — if it is accustomed to invoke in common the holy name of 
God, from whom proceeds every trial, as well as every excellent 
grace, how the bowed soul will be lifted up ! The remaining 
members, the fragments of the family, gather together around the 
table upon which is found the Book of God, that book in which 
they read of the resurrection, of life, of immortality, in which 
they find the certain pledges of the happiness of him who is no 
longer of their number, of their own hope. The Lord is pleased 
to send them in abundance the Comforter ; the spirit of glory and of 
God rests upon them; an ineffable balm ispouredinto their wounds, 
and spreads there great sweetness; hence peace is communi- 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 151 

cated from heart to heart. They taste in some moments of a joy- 
almost celestial. " When I walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy 
rod and Thy staff shall comfort me. Lord, thou hast brought 
up my soul from the grave : For his anger endureth but a mo- 
ment ; in his favor is life ; weeping may endure for a night, but 
joy cometh in the morning." 

Who can tell, my brethren, what an influence domestic piety 
may exert over the whole face of society ? What encouragements 
to this duty cannot all find therein, from the highest officer of state 
to the most humble artizan ! If all would accustom themselves 
to walk in this way, not only in the sight of man, but in the eye 
of God, how would each one learn from it to be content in the 
station in which he is placed ! Good habits would be formed ; 
the powerful voice of conscience would be strengthened ; pru- 
dence, decorum, talents, the social virtues would develope them- 
selves with a strength altogether new. Behold what we may ex- 
pect for ourselves and for society ; "righteousness has the pro- 
mise of the life which now is, and of the life which is to come." 

DIRECTIONS. 

If you would profit by all the benefits of family worship, what 
ought, you to do ? It remains for us, my brethren, to give you 
some directions on this subject. 

And first, as far as it is possible, these exercises of domestic 
piety should not be destitute of the spirit, of truth and of life ; they 
should not consist merely in reading certain books, or in reciting 
certain formulas in which the heart has no share. A total ab- 
sence of domestic piety would perhaps be better than such 
mockery. These dead forms are too often found in families. 
But in this age, when the Church is everywhere striving to arise 
from her ruins, and when the wind, of which Ezekiel speaks, is 
everywhere breathing upon the dry bones, that they may have 
life, it is necessary that we should return to domestic worship, 
and should revive it, not in its perishing and dead state, but in a 
state of strength and life. What shall we do to effect this pur- 
pose ? Let us engage in the offices of domestic piety ; not so 
much as a pious work Which we ought to fulfill, for there we may 
fall over the stumbling-block we have noticed, or into pride ; but 
let us rather engage m them as poor creatures, who would have 
better riches ; as those who hunger and would have nourish- 
ment for that which is the noblest part of them. Perform it as a 
duty, if you will, but the rather as through necessity. The little 
child knows very well how to ask for a morsel of bread, or even 
for milk of its mother ; shall we not know how to ask of God for 
his spiritual and pure milk? 6t Blessed are *they who hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." 

A second rule that we would give you, my brethren, is this, 
that you should not attach yourselves |too exclusively, too ser- 
vilely, to some particular form. Establish, in the first place, such 
a worship as is suited to your own wants, and to those of your 



152 FAMILY WORSHIP. 

household; entire freedom: one day perhaps in this manner, 
another day in that ; sometimes long — another time short. Per- 
haps it would be best that this exercise should not at first em- 
brace all the individuals of the house, but should take place in a 
narrower and more familiar circle ; in this way you would secure 
greater facility and edification. Follow these different impulses ; 
the principal thing is, that God be not forgotten under your do- 
mestic roof. " Keep yourselves firm in the liberty wherewith 
Christ has made you free, and submit no longer to the yoke of 
bondage." But with what, then, ought the moments devoted to 
God, to be occupied ? 

In the first place, and as it is very natural, the reading of the word 
of God ; occasionally, perhaps, that of other Christian works. In 
how many families has this admirable book, this book of the 
nations, been in all ages, and still continues to be, the most pre- 
cious treasure ! In how many dwellings has the Holy Bible diffus- 
ed righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and submission 
to every authority constituted of God. The different books compos- 
ing the Bible, are almost every one of a different kind ; it would 
be difficult to enclose a greater variety in the same volume, yet 
everywhere partaking of the same spirit of God. This circum- 
stance renders it singularly fit for the nourishment of familiesj; 
and thence it happens, that so many poor and obscure families 
among Protestant nations, with this book in their hands, so readi- 
ly outstrip all others, and are brought by it not only into the pos 
session of eternal life, but still more to a remarkable development 
of intelligence. The child, the old man, the woman, the man, 
find alike in it, that which interests and raises them to God. There 
is something in it suited to every situation in life. What abun- 
dant consolations may not all agita.ted and afflicted but faithful 
souls, draw from the psalms of the Prophet-king! It is conve- 
nient to read an entire book in course, but it is not necessary to 
follow the order in which the different books are found arranged 
in the holy Volume. On the contrary, it would perhaps be better 
to pass from the New Testament to the Old, from the Old to the 
New; from one of the Gospels, for example, to one of the Pro- 
phecies (how sublime is that of Isaiah, and how he reaches the 
depths of the soul !), from the Prophets to the Epistles of the 
Apostles, and then to one of the historical books of the Old Tes- 
tament. It is desirable that the reader should make some applica- 
tion of that which he reads. You know how to speak of other 
things which you have read ; here alone, shall sentiments and 
■words fail you ? Can you find nothing in it which is applicable 
to the state of your heart, to the situation of your family, to the 
character of one of your children ? Always read this Book, not 
as a history of past time, but as a word written for you, addressed 
now to you; you will ever find in it something to benefit you. 
If, however, nothing is given you, be satisfied with asking the 
Holy Spirit to cause His word to bear in the heart, those fruits 
which he has promised. " For, as the rain cometh down and the 
snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 153 

earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to 
the sower and bread to the eater ; so shall my word be that goeth 
forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return unto me void, but it 
shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the 
thing whereto I have sent it." 

A second act of worship should be extemporaneous prayer. There 
are doubtless good written prayers; but would you not know 
how to pray yourself with a loud voice ? You know very well 
how to speak to a friend. Why would you not know how to speak 
to God ? It is so easy to approach Him when one draws near in 
the name of Christ crucified ! " Thou art God, very easy to be 
entreated," said David. " He hears us," said he, " before we yet 
speak." If you pray in a low voice, would you not also be able 
to pray aloud ? Be not so careful about your words : " prayer re- 
quires more of the heart than of the tongue, more of faith than 
of reason." How can the influence be other than salutary, when 
the father or mother of a family, for example, prays aloud to God 
in the presence of their children, entering into the details of their 
faults before God, and asking for his assistance and his favor ? 
And when is a family not in a position in which it is not called 
upon to raise its prayer to God for deliverance, for succor, for con- 
solation ? " You shall seek me, and shall find me, after that you 
have sought me with all your heart," is the promise of God. 

A third act of worship, which, if it is practicable, ought to 
make a part of domestic devotions, is singing. Man has now as- 
sociated song with his labors, and above all with his pleasures ; 
but to praise God is certainly its first appointment. It was to this 
that the Prophet King consecrated it. Shall we not devote it to 
the same ? If they sing so many secular songs in the household, 
why can they not sing to the honor of God, who has created and 
has saved us ? " Speaking unto each other in psalms, and hymns, 
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts 
unto God." 

But, does some one ask, what time shall we think thus on God, 
and when shall we draw together towards him ? I reply, at the 
time that you wish, the time which will best suit your conve- 
nience, which will derange your affairs the least. Usually this is 
in the evening ; perhaps, on account of the fatigues of the day, 
it would be better in the morning, or rather both morning and 
evening. After you have taken your morning meal, or even 
while taking it, could you not consecrate the time that is usually 
employed in silence, or in useless trifling, to reading or hearing 
read some words which would lift up your thought to God ? I 
am about to commence the day by the first function of animal ex- 
istence ; but thou, my soul, a spiritual and immortal existence, 
wilt thou do nothing, wilt thou receive nothing now ? I am about 
to nourish my body with that which God has created ; but thou, 
my soul, awaken thyself and be fed by the Creator ! Oh Lord, 
thou art my portion for ever ! Oh God, thou art my strong God ! 
in the morning I will seek thee ! What a blessing, my brethren, 
would such a commencement shed over the whole dav, and to 
7* 



154 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 



what happy dispositions would it dispose us ! And to you, Chris- 
tian parents, -the evening of the Sabbath, that time which the 
children of irreligious parents devote to dissipation, ought to be 
especially precious and sacred. Instruct then your children in 
the way of the Lord, and your instruction at this moment will be 
more especially blessed, if they see that you are truly serious in 
the work in which you are engaged. 

To all this, my brethren, add the main thing, — a life in agree- 
ment with the sanctity of the worship which you offer to God. 
Be not different men before the altar of God, and in the world, but 
be ever and everywhere the same. Let your conduct throughout 
the day be a living commentary on what you have read, heard, 
or spoken, in the hour of devotion. Put in practice the Word, and 
be not hearers only, — deceivingyourselves with vain words, — for the 
sacrifice of fools is abomination in the sight of God, but he is 
well-pleased with the entreaties of the righteous. Such is domestic 
worship. We have reminded you, my dear hearers, of the 
motives which ought to hasten its establishment in your families, 
and we solicit all, but particularly the married, the fathers and 
mothers, to put their hands to the plough. 

But do you exclaim, " this would be so strange a thing ?" 
What, my brethren ? is it not still more strange, that a family, pro- 
fessing Christianity, — professing to have a firm hope for eternity, 
should advance towards that eternity without manifesting in its 
midst any sign of this hope, any preparation, any conversation, — 
perhaps, alas ! without even a thought on these things ? Oh ! 
how strange is conduct like this ! 

But, do you say again, " It is a thing of low repute, inglorious 
in itself, and kindled with a thousand indignities ?" And who is 
then the greatest ; — that father of a family, in patriarchal days, 
who was also a priest of God — who supported his own paternal 
authority, and imparted to it a divine unction by bending his 
knee, with his children, before his Father and their Father, or that 
man of the world, in our day, whose mind is only occupied 
with vain pursuits, who forgot his own and the eternal destinies 
of his children, u whose house is without God ? Oh ! what a 
reproach ! 

But do you further object ? " Different ages, — different manners : 
these things were well enough once ; but now everything is 
changed !" It is just because everything is changed that we must 
hasten to set up again the domestic altar in the bosom of families, 
lest the weak bonds, which still preserve these families, should 
be dissolved, — involving, in their ruin, both Church and State. It 
is not until after disease has spread with great violence that re- 
medies become useless, and before despairing of a man's life, we 
give him at least the most powerful preservatives. 

You, who by the grace of God have with good resolutions, and 
good dispositions, already made the attempt, do not be discourag- 
ed ; make another trial still; have recourse to God in prayer; ask 
Him to guide you, to sustain you, to make you united ; ask Jesus 



FAMILY WORSHIP. 155 

to be with you, for where two or three are gathered together in his 
name, he will be in their midst. 

But, my brethren, before an altar can be raised to God in your 
households, there must be one set up in your hearts ! And is it 
found therein, my brethren ? Oh ! if I couid draw aside the veil ; 
if I could now penetrate and read the hearts of those who listen 
to me, what should I behold ? Or rather, Lord ! what seest thou 
in our hearts, thou for whom there is no veil, and before whom 
all is naked and uncovered ? In your heart, my dear hearer, I 
discover an altar raised to pleasure and worldliness ; upon it you 
offer your morning sacrifice ; and the smoke of your evening 
sacrifice ascends even throughout the night, filled with intoxica- 
tion and stupefaction. In your heart, my dear hearer, I find an 
altar to this world's goods, to riches, to mammon. In yours, my 
dear hearer, I see an altar erected to yourself — you are your own 
idol, which you exalt above everything else ; for whom you desire 
all things, and at whose feet you would see the whole world pros- 
trate itself! My brethren, is there an altar in your heart raised to 
the living and true God ? Are you the temple of God, and dwelleth 
the Spirit of God within you ? So long as there is no altar erected 
in your souls to God, there can be none in your families ; for what 
participation has justice with iniquity ? And what connection is 
there between light and darkness ? What concord has Christ with 
Belial ? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols ? 

Be converted then in your hearts ! die unto the world, unto sin, 
and above all, to yourselves, and live to God in Jesus Christ, our 
Lord. Immortal souls, Christ has redeemed you at a great price ! 
He has yielded up his life on the cross for you ; and know that 
if one died for all, it was that they who live should no longer live 
unto themselves, but should live in newness of life unto Him, who 
died and rose again. Depart, therefore, from idols, and touch not 
any vile thing, and I will receive you, and I will be to you a 
father, and you shall be to me for sons and for daughters, saith 
the Lord God Almighty. 

Oh ! my brethren, happy isthat family which has embraced that 
God, who has said : " I will dwell in the midst of you, and will 
walk with you, and ye shall be unto me for sons and for daugh- 
ters." Happy for time, happy for eternity ! How can you hope to 
meet your children with Christ, in Heaven, if you do not seek 
with them Christ, on earth ? How can you meet again your family 
on high, if you do not concern yourselves in your families below, 
with the things which are above. But the Christian family who 
have been united in Jesus, will be joined together around the 
glories of Him, whom they have loved, not having seen. It will 
but exchange its mean and perishable tabernacle for the immense 
and eternal mansion of God. Instead of an humble family of the 
earth, united by the same bonds with all the families in the Hea- 
vens, it will have become one glorious family which no man can 
number. She, with the hundred and forty-four thousand, will en- 
compass the throne of God, saying, as she said upon earth, but 
with joy, and with glory : " Lord, thou art worthy to receive glory? 
and honor, and power I" 



156 FAMILY WORSHIP. 

Oh my brethren, if there is now a single father or mother, who 
will resolve to assemble together around the Lord ! if there is but 
one person not yet sustaining domestic relations, who has resolved, 
when he shall have formed them, to raise an altar to God in his 
house, and in future years shall put his resolution into practice, 
causing abundant blessings to descend on him and his ; then will 
I render thanks to God for having spoken. Oh my dear hearers ! 
may the Lord so have touched your soul, that you will now ex- 
claim : As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord ! amen. 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES: 



OR 



FRAGMENTS GATHERED FROM A COURSE OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. 



TRANSLATED BY M. M. BACKUS. 



" Viderint theologi, ne si solitis vel quibuslibet viis immaneant . , ." . , 
quod omitti non possit sine damno, a negotio eorum, qui a nobis institu- 
endi sunt, male secludant, vel ad iniquam exiguitatem condemnent." — 
C. J. Nitzsch, Observat. ad Theologi. Practic. 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 



FROM THE « EVANGELICAL GAZETTE"— FIRST PUBLISHED 

IN 1833. 



FAITH. 

In nothing has there been a greater variety than in the ideas which 
have obtained on faith, — and as there is something of truth in all 
that has been said on this subject, it seems to be the cause of in- 
terminable disputes. One considers it only in its principle, ano- 
ther looks merely at its effects. Yet another believes the same 
elements of invariable and infallible trust to be divided between 
them ; — St. James ,and St. Paul do not seem to have been at all 
understood. It has happened now according to the saying of 
Paul writing to the Corinthians, that men have sought out many in- 
ventions and have " ten thousand masters in Christ" — notwithstand- 
ing, the unity of faith is not a chimera. There is one faith, as there 
is one only salvation of which it is the object, and only one Lord 
who imparts it. — What means have we for reconciling all this ? 
In our opinion the following : — 

It is necessary simply to put each part in its own place. Do 
not let us invert the natural order of divine operations ; let us not 
place the end before the beginning, the effect before the cause, 
the fruit before the plant by which it is borne, nor the plant itself 
before the root from which it is to germinate — (Rom. xi.18.) Let 
us have respect unto the Word, and its divine pages will reveal all 5 
explain all, and satisfy every reasonable curiosity.' 

At the first enunciation of the tenia faith there arises before the 
mental vision an unique and complete picture of that light which 
a knowledge of evangelical doctrines bestows on man, as well as 
of the convictions which the proof of that trust engenders in the 
mind, and of the sentiments which that species of conviction 
awakens in the soul, and which are its inseparable companions — 
a picture, in fine, of the deeds to which faith stimulates us ; of 
the fervor it imparts to the will, of the life it communicates to our 
zeal, and of the constancy it confers on the obedience of the 
Christian. It is, in a word, the entire life of the believer. We can 
dignify with the title of true faith, only that complete outline of zeal 
and efficient Christianity which alone was that of the primitive dis- 
ciples of Jesus, and that which alone has never belied the excel- 



160 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

lence of its origin. Is this demonstrable ? Beyond all question ; 
the Scriptures are rigorously definite upon this point, and reject 
without mercy every phantom of faith, all empty appearance, all 
purely nominal profession, and all unfruitful pretensions to its gifts. 

As a consequence of this, all treatises, religious systems, and 
nicely adjusted catechisms, give themselves ample latitude on the 
subject. It has not been deemed sufficient to define faith as a stiong 
belief, it has become necessary to reclothe it in numberless new 
characters, by which it should acquire cleanness, depth, fervor, 
efficacy and life. 

What has been the consequence ? They have mingled with it 
some show of faith, yet so little, that it is impossible to offer it as 
a resource to those who are destitute and ready to perish ; they 
have made it a by-path to those who have neither the time nor in- 
clination to travel the long and difficult road of obedience. 

How can one be saved by it ? I dare not say he is sure that 
he possesses it ; no one would be so rash as to testify of himself 
that he had really acquired it, so full is it of forms and of condi- 
tions ; it would be necessary to any degree of assurance in the 
matter, to have first obtained perfection itself, to have become a 
sainted disciple, and who dare to give himself out for such ? Hu- 
mility seems to forbid it, till at length it has become a point of 
modesty among Christians, an element of security as 1 have al- 
ready said, that strong assurance, that one cannot know positively 
that he possesses faith. 

Was this the primitive design — the end of the preaching of faith, 
which should conduct by a certain way, which the law had failed 
to attain? Who could justify the circumcision by faith, and the im- 
circumcision also by faith ? I dare to make the assertion, — no one ; 
and I add, moreover, that men have completely lost sight of the 
primitive types of that faith and its most striking examples — that 
faith which our Saviour dignified with the title, and commended, 
with the highest praises, seeming, at the first blush, to expect 
nothing else. Faith, such as duties and human works have made 
and described it, is no longer that which was conspicuous in the 
Canaanite woman, who said, " if I may but touch his garment I 
shall be whole," or the centurion of Capernaum, who said, " but 
speak the word only and thy servant shall be healed ;" and which 
then animated so many simple minds, destitute of all that is now 
supposed of such essential importance to true believers. 

Without misapprehending, therefore, the effects and tendencies 
of faith, — all the developments it can receive or furnish, and all 
the riches which it is able to disclose, and the entrance to the 
possession of which it opens to its votaries, it concerns us, in my 
judgment, to have recourse to some very simple idea — the very 
commencement of the way, in fact, — for it is but one, — namely, 
the way of God. It is not an end to reach, but a road, a route, a 
path to follow. From the moment that the foot is truly planted in 
it, the believer has but to take one step, and he is in the faith 
which he has begun to exercise. 

Faith is defined by the Apostle Paul, just as we define senti- 
ments, by its results, rather than by its essence. Faith, accord- 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 161 

ing to him (Heb. xi. 1), is, to him who possesses it such, that 
he already has to a certain degree the good that it promises; and 
its subject lives always in the presence of God and eternal reali- 
ties, and is no longer under the influence of sensible objects. 

But what is it, we would ask here, what is this principle, the 
effect of which is so powerful as to give a reality to things as yet 
invisible ? What is faith in its foundation — in its first act ? 

Faith, in its first elementary act, is belief; the taking, the lay- 
ing hold of the soul upon the Word of God. If the truth of God 
is imparted by instruction, then faith receives it in the Word 
which contains it — it seizes, apprehends, and comprehends this 
living seed. If the truth of God assumes form in facts and 
promises, then faith accepts and embraces them, not in & pas- 
sive manner, which would be dead and indifferent, but in an 
active manner ; it fastens itself to them, it attaches itself to them, 
it submits to their influence, and adopts whatever consequences 
they may lead to. If this truth is a commandment, faith becomes 
an obedience— called the obedience of faith ; if it be a doctrine, 
then faith becomes a profession: "obey the doctrine," says St. 
Paul ; " obey the truth through the spirit," says St. Peter (Rom. 
vi. 17. ; 1 Peter i. 22). 

Faith thus receiving this truth of God, communicates through 
it to man a knowledge of divine things. It is the illumination 
of which the Evangelist speaks (John i. 7. ; 2 Cor. iv. 6. ; Eph. i. 
18). — But.it gives something more than light and knowledge, it 
affects the whole man. Like the sun, which at once imparts 
both life and heat, it is also a resuscitator as well as light to the 
soul that feels its influence. Like the fire which purifieth all 
things, it purifies the heart, — " God has purified the hearts of the 
Gentiles through faith" (Acts xv. 9). It is the introduction of a 
new principle, which renovates the entire man. 

Faith, if we may so speak, takes God at his word — receives 
the truth instantaneously, and lays hold on eternal life the moment 
it is offered (1 Tim. vi. 12). 

Thus conceived, it is unique, and the same throughout the 
whole extent of the Bible. The faith of the elders (" for by it 
the elders obtained a good report," Heb. xi. 2) is only that of the 
New Testament. To the one as to the other, to the first equally 
with the last, it is an overture, an entrance of the divine principle 
into the soul, which has operated everywhere uniformly when 
it has operated unto salvation. It is a hold which God has had 
upon every species of soul, whatever may have been its dispo- 
sition. It is a handle by which to rescue them from the seduc- 
tions of the world, and the engrossing cares of life. By this the 
Lord, who knoweth them that are his, chooses them, from the world, 
that he may keep them from the evil thereof God has done it all 
through faith ; by its influence only does he operate on man, and 
through man, as there is nothing accomplished in the world but 
by his sovereign power. And as the influence of God upon men 
is attributed to men themselves, according to appearances, the 
men (of God) have done it all through faith, and through its 



162 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

influence alone. Here, then, is the secret of the eleventh chapter 
of Hebrews, otherwise inexplicable; but thus comprehended, 
it becomes the key of the Scriptures, the chain of revelations, 
the summary of divine dispensations. 

Beautiful unity of faith ! Misunderstood by the world, and by 
philosophy ! " They are all dead in faith." 

For its operation in all time, notwithstanding the diversity of 
eras, and upon every species of person, of character, of qualities, 
and of different forms, God has given but one way, simple and in- 
dependent of these varied accidents. Otherwise, that which has 
happened to one, would not have happened to another; and the 
same salvation would have been applicable only to men placed 
in analogous situations, or assimilated by a common education. 
But no ! the faith of Abel is the faith which is yet preached in the 
Church as in an eternal school ; the faith of Jairus, the leader of a 
synagogue, that of the Syro- Phoenician, who came from without, 
and that of the Roman centurion, although a Gentile, are not dif- 
ferent in capacity or object ; for all lay hold on a truth which 
penetrates them, a reality which strikes them, a promise which 
wins, rejoices, and consoles them, a succor which relieves, and 
a divine power which, for them, clothes Nature with a new 
aspect, and all attain their end on the very spot where they stand : 
so that the chain of true disciples is continued uninterrupted to 
the end of time ; so that He, who should be most stringent in the 
act or form of faith, inasmuch as he cannot misapprehend it, and 
cannot be imposed on, approves, commands, and testifies of them. 
" Be it unto you according to your faith." " I have not found so 
great faith, no not in Israel." Who, then, shall dare to say that 
this is not faith in its simplest, clearest, and most powerful form ? 
when the Master himself has said that this is the virtue of faith, 
and that at bottom it is nothing else. It refers beforehand to Him 
future ; subsequently to Him present ; and once absent from the 
earth, it refers to Him past and to come, with entire submission. 
" Whom having not seen ye love ; in whom, though now ye see 
him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full 
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation *of 
your souls." 

On the other hand, the regenerative power of Christ acts wholly 
spiritually — every one receives the simplest definition of faith in 
regard to worldly matters, why not then in spiritual ? It is justi- 
fying righteousness which becomes its object; it is not a mere 
healing of the body, but a blessing shed on the entire soul of 
man. " We believe from the heart to obtain righteousness," says 
St. Paul ; " for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from 
faith to faith, and reigns in all, and over all who believe." Who, 
then, will refuse to believe it in this its fullest, richest, and most 
obvious meaning ? 

The unity of faith thus apprehended is admirably perfect, be- 
cause it is a unity in every sense — an historical unity — a unity of 
cause and effect. We can truly say of it, here is one faith. We 
can thus speak of it independently of time and circumstance, in- 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 163 

cident to different ages. There has been a progress in all other 
things, but none in faith, or rather there is a progress in the faith 
of every believer, an onward progress from " strength to 
strength ;" but there never can be any increase in the nature or 
essence of faith, for God is unchangeable. Man goes on to per- 
fection ; he believes ; he goes on from faith to faith (if indeed he 
has commenced this divine life) : but faith never changes from 
century to century — never becomes other than that it always has 
been. Abraham will always be the type, the model ; and those 
who have the faith of Abraham, are and ever will be his chil- 
dren. 

He whom God has called, like Abraham, will obey ; he to 
whom Christ has said, as to Levi, " follow me," will also walk 
in his footsteps. Every Christian feels the force of the Centuri- 
on's words and faith — " I say unto this man go, and he goeth ; to 
another do this, and he doeth it." It is thus God would have us 
believe and live ; and this faith, so simple, childlike, and yet in- 
stantaneous, is supported by that cloud of witnesses who have 
already attained to its full fruition — " of Moses who left Egypt, 
not fearing the anger of the king, of Gideon, of Barak, of Sam- 
son, &c. It is the faith of the learned Nicodemus, of the just 
man, Joseph of Arimathea, of Zaccheus the publican, and of the 
simple-hearted Mary. All else is only opposition, doubt, blind 
groping, or vain pretension, false and faithless. All who have 
ever believed, " the multitude of those who have believed" (Acts ii. 42), 
all continuing faithful in the doctrine of the Apostles, will ever 
be a cloud of witnesses to show what kind of faith we should 
exercise. 

We seem to have taken at least one important step in our day 
towards the truth — that of valuing useful knowledge above every 
other consideration. It is but a few years since evangelical 
truth was refused, because unsupported by mathematical demon- 
stration ; and failing to see all that appertained to faith, of prompt 
discernment and confident profession, reduced to the form of an 
equation, they have pronounced it a string of abstruse definitions, 
vain, incorrect fables, powerless to persuade. Let us be thankful 
that we do not now live under the influence of these ill founded 
prejudices — this superficial judgment. No ! faith is the instru- 
ment by which God saves man, and man may lay hold on God ; 
it is the channel, the medium of communication between the visi- 
ble and invisible, the natural and supernatural, the human ? and 
divine; faith, as an immediate and transcendent faculty, shall go 
on conquering and to conquer, till it shall be received by all who 
are truly wise, as that alone embodies the highest elements of 
reason. 

REASON. 

It is necessary to commence here, since our concern is with an 
instrumental faculty, or rather with all our faculties taken together. 
To say that religion should enlighten man, that it should be his 
guide, is only saying that he should be guided by reason, for rea- 



164 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

son properly is the entire mental part of man, the means by which 
he acquires all knowledge. But if, in place of the vague term reli- 
gion, we substitute that of Christianity, the Gospel, and if the 
Gospel preaches, recommends, inspires faith, as a primary means, 
if Christianity is a religion of faith, our theme then is enlightened 
and guided by faith, which thus becomes its master and school- 
master, whose science, object, and study are the Gospel. 

Speaking thus, we assuredly do not wrong reason — it is without 
dispute the master faculty of man ; his head or rather his eye, 
placed as a sentinel on the height of this moving tower, to watch 
the dangers which threaten him, and avoid the snares which sur- 
round him. It serves both as a light and sentinel while the night 
lasts, and even when the daybreaks, it is a day which only makes 
clearer those objects it faintly observed — the first rays which 
bring the pure light. It receives and profits by them, and only 
gains knowledge through them. This comparison involves the 
principle of an irrefragable demonstration. 

In the ministry of the reconciliation of the Gospel, it is to the rea- 
son of man that all appeals are made. But for this it is first necessary 
to form an accurate estimate of its capacity. To the rightful ex- 
ercise of its privileges, we must not exaggerate or abuse them, 
much less turn against God the sovereign reason (otherwise called 
the word, \oyog) he has given us to submit to him. How can he 
who has never humbled himself before God, nor surrendered the 
weapons of his unrighteous warfare, lead others " to the way of 
peace" by the path of reconciliation ? To such a spiritual guide 
St. Paul says in vain, " Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil 
(or the rebellious spirit), and he will flee from you." 

How can he triumph over rebellious men " who obey not the 
truth," who remains himself a rebel and gainsayer of the Gos- 
pel of the grace of God ? How can he lead captive souls to Christ, 
who has not first given himself to him ? How can he spread in 
the world this victory which is our faith, whose weapons are yet 
carnal, and who fights not with the sword of the Spirit, but with 
vain reasonings (James i. 22). Now this is the case of a large 
number of divines or spiritual guides, who cherish the most false 
ideas both with regard to their own reason and that of those to 
whom it is their duty to speak of the things of God. If there be a 
subject on which they are in error, it is certainly this of reason. 
After all that has been given us for the exercise of reason in mat- 
ters of faith, how is it yet misapprehended? 

Do not think that we have come before you to declaim against 
one of the holiest prerogatives of men. No — let us rather deter- 
mine its true province, and thus assured, facilitate and perfect its 
highest aim. You say that it is reason which distinguishes us 
from brutes ; we will place it still higher. But we add, that it 
places us far below men, if it does not raise us to God himself, 
and receive the impress of his divine Spirit ; for alone and de- 
pendent on itself, it can only lead us in blind paths, precipitate us 
in the most frightful errors, down hideous precipices, while the 
brutes, unable to pass beyond certain limits, have consequently a 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 165 

fixed, imperfectible, determinate nature, which never deceives 
them. 

Reason is the eye of the soul, and not its torch. For the eye is 
not the light: it is merely the organ by which light enters— an 
organ to the body is as a faculty to the soul. 

There is, however, a light. It shines forth from the Gospel, not 
vague and indefinite, but positive, determined— even personified. 
(See John i. 8.) So much the more efficacious is that light. " The 
light manifests all things. All hidden things are made manifest 
by the light. Has any one regarded it ? We are all enlightened 
by it. In thy light we see light. I am the light of the world, of all 
men who come into the world." (Who shall except himself from 
this rule ?) Purify yourselves, that you may also become lights. 
Formerly you were darkness, now ye are the lights of the Lord. 
Such is the theory of faith. It is entirely philosophical. 

That this light may be effective, it must be received, admitted, 
till it penetrate the eye of the soul — its organ of vision, of 
intuition ; that so it shall reach the depths of the soul, its most 
secret sanctuary. With the best eyes, it is plain one can see no- 
thing in a dark room. At midday it will be night in a house 
closely shut. It is not therefore the eye which makes light — but 
is made light. Or if we say it enlightens in its turn, we do not 
speak correctly. Material light is that which enables man to see 
and to read — it is a space, a medium between him and exterior 
objects, by which he acquires the idea of their existence — their 
presence or approach is revealed to him. Much more then is 
this true of the divine light. It reveals, it demonstrates, it opens, 
it instructs ; and here we come back to the definition of faith: 
" the evidence of things not seen." Thus Christ, Light of the soul, 
Reason even of reason, wishes to be received. It is upon those 
who have received him that he has conferred this right of divine 
adoption. [This is the cause^of condemnation and also of error, that 
" the darkness received not the light," as there would be an end- 
less night to the world if the sun never rose upon it, or if an im- 
penetrable cloud hung over it which intercepted its rays. These 
are no metaphors — they are realities — ideas almost mathemati- 
cally true. 

Light has only to appear, and shine upon the organ to which is 
appropriated and given. It is its own demonstration. It «does 
not prove its own existence, it simply offers itself to the eye, and 
seeing is evidence sufficiently strong — like the definition of the 
word evidence — that which is so plain and stands forth so boldly 
that it cannot be proved. The internal evidence of the Bible, 
therefore, particularly of the gospel, is more powerful to con- 
vince the soul than the whole assemblage of external evidence. 
If a light is held before me, do I need one to tell me it is a candle ? 
I see it: it shines upon me. Thus the evidence, the illumination 
of the truth of Christ is brighter, and goes farther than all these 
proofs, which should, say they, precede it. By this short, rapid, 
and perfect way is a system of faith formed, so clear that one 
would only become confused who should endeavor to simplify it. 



166 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

Thus we see how one may commence the study of the Word of 
faith with a preconceived opinion. This disposition toward faith 
will assist, much more will it lead farther, than the system of phi- 
losophical doubt many have instituted in the research of truth. 
It will be one thing to reason along with faith, or to look with an 
eye which sees perspicuously ; and quite another to search for 
the reasons of faith with a reason which sets oat with refusing ;o 
believe. 

Thus apprehended, the words of Christ are easily understood. 
It is a clear light itself, or which promises to become one, as the 
Saviour has said : " The eye is the light of the body ; if therefore 
thine eye be light, thy whole body shall be fall of light." These 
words contain the most valuable information. How can one see 
clearly with diseased eyes ? How can one make a right use of a 
perverted faculty ? How dare one pretend to be enlightened or 
judge of His Word, which judges not only himself, but the thoughts 
and intentions of the heart ? Would it not be better first to heal his 
diseased organ, to recover his reason ? And in order to recover 
his reason, should he not, like the staggering invalid, learn to walk 
step by step, foot by foot, or rather after the infallible guide which 
is given him ? 

From that time, the character, the design, the capacity of rea- 
son is marked. We say in two words, that one should become 
scholar and not master, should learn to be reasonable, not a rea- 
soner. It is said of the true wisdom, that it comethfrom above, and 
that it is not cavilling. Yet it is, without doubt, right that one 
should be able to judge for himself, to defend himself, as is recom- 
mended in the Holy Scriptures. " Are you that are without able 
to judge of the least things ?" " Judge yourselves, whether it is 
right before God to obey you rather than God." But, at the same 
time, take heed how you judge. " Judge not according to appear- 
ance, but judge righteous judgment" " Prove the spirits." " Exa- 
mine all things." " Inquire carefully what is the will of the Lord." 
" I speak as to wise men ; judge ye what I say." 

And here let us rectify a common prejudice. Vain is that ap- 
plication which is used without distinctness, according to the ap- 
parent sense of these last words. It concerns a sincere Christian 
here, to be assured of his faith and of his doubts in this true 
light." Faith is this wisdom, which St. Paul calls spiritual, as given 
by the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Christ. It testifies of 
believers that they are happy ; they are enriched ; it asks yet 
more for them with the most fervent prayers. The proof that this 
intelligence is nothing else than faith, is, that Jesus called his dis- 
ciples a long time men without knowledge, and these words are 
equivalent to men of little faith. He explains this thought by add- 
ing, " Slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have said" 
(Luke xxiv. 25). It was this, consequently, which deprived them 
of a higher degree of knowledge, of discernment concerning the 
most important, simple, and obvious truths. The absence of this 
principle of light held their minds in total darkness, as we speak 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 167 

of those whom Christ has not enlightened by his Spirit, or who 
have turned back after receiving a knowledge of the truth. 

Let us inquire what St. Paul means when he speaks of the 
natural man (1 Cor. ii.) It is not the purely natural man of which 
the other writers of the Scriptures speak, abruti ; it is the man 
with his soul, as he actually exists, avBpwos \pv X iKog y even the psy- 
chology of the soul. How few are they who give it any atten- 
tion ! And yet this natural man comprehends not the things of 
the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned. tivzvjxa- 
Tixug (spiritually) expresses a species of spirituality widely differ- 
ent from intelligence. Speaking according to the Word of God, 
spiritual cannot mean intellectual. One may, perhaps, be very in- 
telligent, and yet have oniy- a carnal understanding with regard to 
divine things. Observe the particularity with which St. Paul 
distinguishes the precept on which this discernment rests. " Now 
we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which 
is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to 
us of God." Let us mark carefully the words, when, in speaking 
of the same things, he adds, " Which things also we speak, not 
in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy 
Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things with spiritual." Thus 
are the words of Christ made manifest, " his words are spirit and 
life," that " flesh and blood hath not revealed these things ;" that 
no one could discern, or teach ; or comprehend them by his own 
intelligence ; and thus is the wisdom of God folly in the sight of 
the world, and, in return, the wisdom of this world folly before 
God. 

Having named the doubt, we say that it is erroneous and fool- 
ish to desire this unceasing discussion, without holding anything 
as received or established, as if every man, entering into eternal 
life, must tear down and rebuild the edifice which has furnished 
him a sanctuary and a shelter. He might as well call in question 
his own nature or the existence of his body ; — too happy if, like 
Descartes, he can return from it to the simplest exercise of 
thought. God protects his servants from this foolish distrust, 
which is only a confidence in the works of their own hands. If 
you can only believe in the God you have made for yourselves — that 
you have consecrated, — which shall come out of the crucible of 
your own weak imagination, if you cannot certify, publish, or 
offer anything better to your contemporaries, you do not give them 
much that is worthy their acceptance. How can you convict 
them for your penury ? Proud in their own strength, which 
after all is only a created power that destroys more than it 
edifies, the men of our day, destitute of the erudition of the giants 
of past ages, reject, with contempt, the traditions which, though 
perhaps confused, are rich from centuries which are no more. Un- 
grateful, they misapprehend their benefits, and yet make no pre- 
paration to leave to succeeding generations the treasures they 
have themselves amassed. 

Truly this is strange folly and presumption to desire to prove 
all things, and yet believe nothing — accept nothing with confidence. 



168 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

Try not to prove all things, you who desire salvation ! Be not 
so foolish as to make everything depend on your proofs ! 

Acknowledge intrinsic excellence without these— independent 
and irrespective of these antique verities ; and do not offer your 
proofs in comparison with the testimony of reiterated experience, 
— of accumulated evidence, as if your happiness depended on 
adding yet your testimony. Believe, therefore, and, above all 
things, wear the air of belief, that Christianity may be able to live 
and extend its roots ; that it may teach you it has need of nothing 
else ; that, while it offers you a refuge, it asks nothing for itself in 
. return. Consequently, if you neglect this salvation, you shall be 
'the first punished, the first to complain, and all that *you have 
known, or desired, or deemed advantageous, you shall regard 
lost, &c. Therefore, in place of this endless disputation, open, 
rehearse, search, repeat divine things ; but the echo — the echo of 
this misapprehended verity, understand it for yourselves — yea, 
search to the very foundation. 

Let not this century, already so vain of its acquisitions, behold 
you in pain, in labor — destitute of the everlasting gospel, — of an 
eternal Saviour. Let it see rather that you desire him for yourself, 
and treat it as a criminal, as it will appear in the presence of its 
judge, according to the words of our Lord : " Now cometk the judg- 
ment of this world" and with it that of reason also. 

We sympathize, therefore, with the great apostle who had 
attained the highest point of knowledge, and knew well how to 
appreciate human success. " We preach wisdom not of this 
world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught — a 
wisdom which none of the princes of this world knew, — a wisdom 
among them that are perfect." 

Among other strange mistakes incident to human reason is that 
of taking the effect for the cause ; and vice versa — many who would 
shrink back with horror from speaking of the grace of God, the will 
of God, and His sovereign power as first and last cause of all 
things, speak affectedly of nature, and personify it as it were, a 
creator rather than a creature. It is Nature who has done this, 
who has done that ! Because God moves in man, and by the ad- 
mirable efficiency of his continued power ever sustains and directs 
him, they have come at length to think it is man who acts for 
himself, and who finds in himself his origin and design. The 
first steps of salvation are revealed to him, and those things give 
him all the merit of its acquisition. How can reason, strict and 
severe, allow itself to forget the only hand which can guide un- 
failingly, the only piercing eye that can foresee the issue, God who 
worhetk in us to will and to do according to his own good pleasure ? Ah ! 
this only shows too plainly that it has lost, even by the manner in 
which it addresses itself to man, the means it uses for his conver- 
tion. Instead of preaching, that is, of publishing, of proclaim- 
ing that it is God who gives grace, who converts, who touches, 
who strikes, who breaks, who subdues, who awakens, who ani- 
mates, who changes, in short, who begins and ends his work, also 
in a God who temporarily enriches and impoverishes, who abases 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 169 

who exalts, who is the first and the last ; it reduces to a mass of 
ruins the honor of belief, hoping itself to rise from the midst of 
the ruins, and elevate itself upon them even to the highest heaven. 
Because there is necessarily something human, terrestrial, mate- 
rial in the Bible, since it is a book) and has a natural correspondent 
action), they forget, they lose sight of its only object, namely, to 
bring the soul in contact with the divine nature, only influencing, 
only powerful in itself; that the grand design is to furnish a point 
of meeting, of incidence, which once found regenerates the soul. 
(A simple analysis of the Parable of the Sower will enable us to 
comprehend this readily, and we may therefore return to it.) The 
eyes, the hands', and the feet, are all necessary to the body, so, 
wit, memory, the attention which compares, the judgment which 
concludes, are necessary to the perfection of the mind. But after all, 
what has it for its final "end, if it be not to place the soul in com- 
munication with this lively or living word which regenerates, which 
can save the soul, yet which can do it alone through the Eternal 
Spirit, ever the same, who operates on the minds he has formed ! 

Thus, therefore, speaking simply, giving heed and examining 
the Word, without desiring to find one meaning rather than ano- 
ther, without endeavoring to avoid anything — without adding or 
subtracting therefrom, this is the right, sincere, and correct de- 
sign of reason, equally with the pastor as with the simple believer, 
and even he who does not possess this humble, docile spirit 
(which Paul calls the same spirit of faith), as well as the first, will 
be governed by it. For this spirit is not natural to man ; they have 
it not who make the greatest pretensions ; they who really pos- 
sess the largest share see their ignorance, it can with difficulty 
enter a proud heart. Christ himself is the Master Sovereign, 
the Shepherd of the sheep, and manifests his willingness to impart 
this spirit to those who desire it. " Learn of me, for I am meek 
and lowly of heart ; according as it is written of me in the vo- 
lume of the Word ; Lo ! I come to do thy will, God !" — It is 
written ! comprehend it well ! and this is the substantial Word 
which refers to the Scriptures ! What obedience of faith ! 
What fidelity! What docility! Eternal, uncreated reason, the 
Logos, who has only to speak of divine things, teach us therefore 
to listen meekly while it is said — Hear ye Him. 

But what difference, after all, is there between our exposition of 
the Scriptures, and that of those who explain it only by their rea- 
son, since we both agree that reason is only the medium by which 
we see the light placed on that candlestick, or the eye by which 
we read it there ? 

The eye sees undoubtedly in the Bible, as in any other book, 
characters traced, and from them forms words and phrases, and as 
the mind apprehends the meaning seizes finished or isolated 
passages, otherwise limited and dependent on that which precedes 
or follows. This is the natural process, and the same for all 
works, But how different the result ! The disciple can never ex- 
ceed his prescribed bounds, and God says to him as to the sea, 
" Thus far shalt thou go and no further." The mouth of the Lord hath 
8 



170 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

spoken, Give ear, heavens, and keep silence, earth ; hearken, 
my people, and I will speak. We have heard these marvels from 
our fathers, and we will tell them to our children and to our chil- 
dren's children, and generations yet to come shall praise the Lord. 
Let us not shrink back because they are mysteries. This is the 
mystery of God our Father and of Christ, and concerning the 
things of Christ, these are they hidden from the foundation of the 
World, but now revealed to those who believe : for IC eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man 
to conceive the things which God hath prepared for those that 
love him." " The secret of the Lord'is with them that fear him and 
He will show them his covenant." Let us look at it in this light, 
at all times. God speaks to man generally and to the individual 
soul particularly, to give it to know his designs and the riches of his 
grace. It concerns us, therefore, man ! to read, to listen, to re- 
ceive it ! 

And what can be more reasonably simple than to enter and take 
a seat, if you please, in the school of one Tyrannus (Acts xix.), 
where Paul disputes with his disciples. What can be better added 
to your faith, to make it reasonable, or even to transform 
your reason into faith, than this sure foundation, not on the un- 
certain, variable knowledge of man, but on the power of God — 
than to rest on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, 
Jesus Christ being the head stone of the corner ? This is spoken 
concerning the word: but this word alway remains; for it is 
written: " Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written 
for our learning" (Rom. xv.41 — 1 Cor. x. ii.). While we read, there- 
fore, and admit all that we find in agreement with the analogy of 
faith, of an unchangeable faith, a faith more open, which existed 
before it was thus called, our belief is confirmed by the testimony 
of a great cloud of witnesses — all receiving the Bible with equal 
respect, and comprehending it under the bright manifestation of 
prayer. We certainly, therefore, are not degraded in receiving 
truth, like these worthy fathers, since we are all baptized under 
the same cloud, and receive of the same Spirit. 

No ; the Gospel has nothing stable, nothing veritable, or else it 
is really a charge — a good trust. M 0, Timothy, keep that which 
is committed to thy charge ! Holdfast the form of sound words." 
Whosoever does not thus fear the obligation to teach in one 
only irreproachable way, is declared even by this Word, who is 
the sovereign Judge of his servants, to have an endless contro- 
versy of words, to have rejected the faith, and to be reproved by 
this knowledge. He vainly boasts his reason, who has never yet 
offered this reasonable service (tw> Ao^i^j/ \arpuav) which the Apostle 
says is due to his God, when he beseeches the Romans to offer their 
spirits and their bodies for a living sacrifice. 

NOTE. 

We come now to the weighty matter of authority. Many de- 
claim loudly against all authority; but does that detract from its 
value, or prove it useless ? I think not. There certainly is some 
authority. 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 17l 

The analogy of faith is nothing more nor less than authority — 
the consideration of that which has always been true, that has 
always been received as such, the authority that the Bible has 
published, spread and rendered common among all Christians, 
which the Gospel has taught and presented to the Church uni- 
versal, for the approbation of the universal Church. But who 
speaks of approbation, who of confession ? 

A Christian who would be alone in the world in his particular 
belief, would indeed have good reason to judge himself and to 
count himself rashly proud of his own understanding. This 
would truly be an isolated sense that he possessed, not common 
sense in the Christian Church. What we call common sense in 
earthly matters, in matters of faith is only an individual and par- 
ticular interpretation. Here the customary expressions are nei- 
ther correspondent nor synonymous. Christianity is not an isolat- 
ed system ; it is, on the contrary, one of reconciliation — it is a 
social system; the Christian is not a monad, but a part of the 
great whole which diffuses life and improvement among all the 
members. He is not merely one who believes, but one [of the 
great number of believers. 

When one is seeking salvation, at the commencement of the 
spiritual life, he should undoubtedly act and feel as if he were 
alone in the world. His relations with God are the same as if 
God had done all that he has done, and said all that he has said, 
only for him. Thus the Eternal Word causes the soul to feel its 
burden, and produces its effect ; but when it concerns the piety of 
the individual, his perfection in faith, then has it reference to the 
whole, for this is their common faith, that which has been given to the 
saints, which unites, renders them members one of another. 

There is an agreement in this faith which furnishes the be- 
liever a guiding thread — and he cannot take one step without 
holding it. There is a common understanding in the Church, or 
an unanimous consent which rules, concerning the particular 
sense ; and that is the unity of the spirit ; this is also a true 
authority. 

The faith of every true Christian should correspond with that 
of all others, and this agreement is the analogy of faith. 

Such an authority is not a yoke ; it is a guaranty. Without it, 
one sails at random on the ocean of the Bible, as without a com- 
pass on that of this world. Were it possible to bring together the 
whole universal church to hear this, what it would declare to be 
true would undoubtedly be the truth, and thus it would unavoid- 
ably be brought under submission. Now in history we see the 
Church, as it appears to be that of all times and in all places. 
Here it is we find the summation of centuries. Those who were 
under its jurisdiction have unanimously acknowledged this is not 
a false agreement, but gives the weight of authority. This is 
what we can and must respect. This is no longer acting the 
severe theologian, but submitting to gross misconception. 

We should not submit blindly to the opinion of men, it is true, 
because the Bible says, truly every man is a liar, from which we 
may infer that all men are liars, as Paul quotes from the poet, 



172 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

that all the Cretans are liars — but all Christians are not liars; 
for, 1st, Faith is not a human opinion ; it has been given once to 
the saints : and 2dly, the Spirit of truth is with the Church, and 
not only the Spirit, the mind of Christ (1 Cor. ii. 6), but also the 
expression of this mind on the Word of truth, and not only the 
written Word, but a constant living Word. Our Confessions 
rightly say, the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of 
God. It carries not only in itself, but ivith itself, its own work and 
the declaration of its unchangeable stability. 

What has always proved true for Christians, is given for truth. 
Denial is heresy. We do not teach according to our own under- 
standing of God, manifested in the Gospel. We speak as we 
have heard (for faith cometh by hearing). We give as we have 
received (tradere). I give you that which 1 also have received, says 
the Apostle. Who shall be angry at such a tradition, and deny 
it a just title ? 

Thus we see orthodoxy exalted throughout all time by the 
voice of centuries, and reigning triumphant above all the contests 
which have divided the churches of the East and the West, the 
churches of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and even of the Reformed 
Church, and the sects which have been springing up around it. 
That which has been, is yet, and will be true above all others : 
orthodoxy has become a fact. Yet can one hope to possess this 
truth if he keeps himself beyond its reach ? 

Wherefore seek to make this authority obnoxious ? What does 
it contain so repugnant to the nature of man ? Do we not see 
these very individuals who become so passionate at the mere 
mention of the word authority, exercising it each in his own 
sphere, as pastors, as fathers, in the circle of their families, or of 
their external influence, the authority of age. even of that forbid- 
ding physiognomy, of gesture and appearance ; speaking, for ex- 
ample, of the importance of religious education, they say, " These 
first impressions are never effaced, &c." And wherefore, if it is 
not that children, scholars, inferiors, receive with confidence and 
deference these opinions given with an air and show of author- 
ity ? What inconsistency in those who cry up the use of reason, 
in matters of faith, in the sense of absolute independence ! To 
reconcile all things by the opinion of the day, to avoid walking 
by a simple rule. This changing opinion, which appears to 
them a formidable power, has become a very different thing from 
simple authority (2 Peter ii. 19). 

CONSCIENCE. 

There is not a more important element among all those, which 
will increase the zeal of a minister of the Gospel, than con- 
science ; but there is also no element which deserves to be better 
known. Shall we content ourselves, then, with common ideas 
with regard to it ? It is worth the trouble of an examination. 

There is necessarily something vague and ill-defined in the 
common acceptation of the word. It is in effect often mistaken 
for the point of a sentiment which it resembles, and often these 
metaphors are used in describing it. "Conscience ! conscience !" 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 173 

cries John and James, " immortal and celestial voice !" Again, 
with others it is by moral axioms, fixed principles, and uncreated 
laws, that they speak of it ; it is an engraved table, say they, 
like that of Sinai. As a mute and defined, yet constant witness, 
they call upon it immediately, consult it at" all times, question 
and make it speak like a living witness, which cannot remain 
unmoved ; they call to it, trouble it, excite and endeavor to re- 
move it. Is it, therefore, of no consequence to discover, or at 
least to become acquainted with this strange character, this 
mysterious agent ? And if it be a power in man, should it not, 
at least, have a Christian name ? 

The commonly received ideas of conscience, which obtain in 
life, and in ordinary conversation, are really unjust, and very 
incomplete, from which results a very imperfect development 
of the moral sense, that fails to lead man to his highest perfection. 
They speak of conscience merely as we have noticed them speak- 
ing of reason ; yet it seems that it should be something by itself — 
a guide, a master, &c. We have seen formerly that the eye is 
not the light, but the organ through which light is seen ; and, 
again, that the eye must be sound, and the light reach it, be ad- 
mitted and not decomposed, in order to obtain and form just ideas 
of things. We here repeat it, and liken conscience to another 
of our senses. Not now the sight, but hearing which shall serve 
as a common point. There is a singular agreement between the 
precision of the first and the confusion of the second of these 
senses (considered psychologically), at the same time a delicacy, 
a sensibility, which distinguishes the hearing, by which it attains 
a relative perfection, while the sight is incapable of this same 
perfectibility, — yet its exactness and force confine it to a fixed 
point. There is, I say, a remarkable analogy between the two 
senses we have just observed, and reason, as compared with 
conscience. 

Instead of speaking of conscience as a voice, it will be better 
to regard it as the organ by which this voice is recognized, which 
collects the sound, gives new shades to familiar perceptions — in 
fine, that a delicate conscience, like fine hearing, or a practised 
ear, will be the most exquisite organ, while a penetrating reason, 
like long, far-reaching sight, is, in other respects, the strongest of 
our faculties. 

Conscience is less the voice, though it has long been represented 
thus, than the locality where it dwells, and where we must hear 
it. It is less the oracle itself, than the sanctuary where it speaks 
and gives its responses : but language confounds, by vague ex- 
pressions, the Deity who inspires the temple where he resides, 
and the medium, the instrument, by which he communicates a 
knowledge of himself. And here we find the difficulty in what 
has already been said of conscience. For, in fine, we attribute 
it to God, when we say it is God whispering to man the claims 
of j udgment, when we say it is a tribunal established in man, or 
a judge, a guardian, a witness who watches his actions, an an- 
ticipated judgment, a present and lasting judgment, a prelude of 



174 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

the final; all these images revolving around the principal idea, 
render it obscure and indistinct. 

This leads us into contradictions, and difficulties, deeper than 
those from which we would extricate ourselves, and makes us 
in practice feel sensibly the description of St. Paul (Rom. ii. 14), 
that at least on one head, conscience has something natural, com- 
mon to all men — even to the savage. At length we come to the 
inquiry, what is this conscience of the righteous and the Chris- 
tian (" void of reproach before God and man"), since the idea 
of conscience is only an idea of reproach, of profound guilt, 
which becomes more lively and intense, in proportion as it is 
enlightened and cultivated.* 

For he who examines, who listens, who cleanses slightly his 
conscience, will have the fewest reproaches — while he, on the 
contrary, who watches more carefully, will become most suscep- 
tible to uneasiness and anxiety on this account. How pretend to 
have a conscience without reproach before God ? Since that 
wmich escapes man, magnifies itself in the light of his countenance 
(Psalm xc.) ; and before men who never can read the conscience 
accurately, and should therefore abstain from it, what are we to 
understand by a conscience void of reproach, since no one has a 
right to force it to reveal that which is hid, and no one knows to 
draw the soul from its depths ? The feeling that every one has, with 
regard to this, is, that he would not for all the world have his inner- 
most thoughts brought to light or exposed to the judgment of the best 
disposed assembly or the most indulgent ear. I call every one here 
to witness* 5 ! One feels, after all that has been said, the necessity of 
a more logical, and at the same time a more scriptural exposition. 
We have already given the principle in our definition. We know 
assuredly that it is rather the ear of the soul to hear, than the sound 
and the voice even ; it is the most retired, the most secret, the most 
interior locality ; as in the physical ear there are some chambers 
more interior than others. We say simply that God speaks in 
man. Man speaks from without, but God speaks from within. 

* At least man, in his natural state, can have no other; and it is 
of this we now wish to speak. Take for example, modesty: why should 
modesty blush? Does not the word even (pudor) express shame 1 Is it 
not a sudden revelation, a subtle accusation, of a secret sympathy, an 
unknown correspondence with something hidden and impure within, of 
which one hardly believes himself capable'? Can an angel feel it? No. 
Modesty shows that all evil is not from without, as would have been the 
case with simple, perfect innocence. Conscience gives the knowledge of 
sin, in whose presence evil should be held in check, yet which, turned aside 
from its original rectitude, cannot always tell when the Evil One approaches. 
" He comes, but has nothing in me-" — (John xiv. 30.) It is true, say some, 
conscience approves us when we do well ; but, certainly, that is doubtful. 
How can it prompt one to a secret approbation, when everything in its 
nature shows us the danger of indulging any feeling of complacency toward 
ourselves 1 And, after all, which is the most frequent, the most conscien- 
tious of the two — that which approves, or that which reproaches'? Cer- 
tainly the sphere of conscience is to reproach, and if it performs its duty, 
this is its most natural and most common office. 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 175 

(See Imitat. of J. C.) God speaks to the heart, say the prophets, or 
rather, according to the original, in the heart, where it awakens a 
mighty echo. 

Having placed this principle hi advance, let us endeavor to give 
a scriptural and logical exposition of the nature of conscience, 
and then follow it out in its various steps. 

1st. As in the faculty of vision, it is said that the light lightens 
all men coming into the world, and kindles in him the flame of intel- 
ligence, lays down the rules of these principles, founds the axioms, 
adjusts the measure of truth, so the natural oracle the conscience, 
speaks in the heathen himself, in the natural man, unconverted, 
causes him to hear a voice of reproach, enough, at least, not to leave 
himself without a witness, although the natural man gives little at- 
tention to this first degree of instruction, of divine warning which 
he hardly regards. But let us proceed — 

If man becomes, by the gift of a positive revelation, a worshipper 
in spirit and in truth, he will enter most willingly and most joyfully 
into the mysterious place where this oracle resides, he will listen 
to it silently, he will tremble at its voice, and he will say before 
it as young Samuel was instructed by the High Priest — Speak, Lord, 
thy servant heareth. — (l<Sam. iii. 7, 9, 10. Heb. ii. 1., hi. 7, 15.) 

2d. Then the oracle itself will become new (for all is new, under 
a new dispensation). " I will hear what He will say to those who 
love Him," says the Psalmist. " The merciful God will speak 
peace to them." This will be a voice of mercy and of pardon, in- 
stead of a voice of reproach, continual and pitiless. And St. Paul 
says three times in succession, that it is the Spirit which says— 
" To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." That 
this conscience is not natural, you can say nothing less. And this 
only can explain the gospel expression, conscience of sin, opposed 
to a good conscience, or conscience without reproach, that is, a satisfied 
conscience, renewed by God himself, or a sentiment acquired by 
a reconciliation. The Apostle does not say that he himself at- 
tempts to accomplish it, but to preserve and guard it when it has 
once been given him. St. Peter speaks concerning baptism as an 
answer before God. It is the testimony of faith, which is double, 
" when the Spirit witnesses with our spirit, that we are the chil- 
dren of God." We also render this testimony (John xv. 27.), " I 
know in whom I have believed, in the Lamb of God who taketh 
away the sins of the world," and who has power to justify those 
who receive it. St. Peter makes this a consequence of the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter iii. 21), for, having died for our 
offences, he is raised again for our justification. It is 9 in short, con 
science purified from dead works (Heb. ix. 14), the conscience of justi- 
fication. 

3d. There is yet a more perfect conscience, or rather a third 
degree, relating to sanetifieation, upon which we must enter by 
a new way. There is a Councillor, as well as a judge, as well as 
a Saviour of souls. " Thou shalt hear," says the prophet Isaiah, 
" the voice of one behind thee, saying, this is the way, walk ye 
in it." This Councillor is h^ ^\om the Gospel, whom Jesus Christ 



176 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

calls by the beautiful name of Comforter, and to whom he deliv- 
ers, commits and ever assigns the keeping of the saved soul, 
after having by the former act recovered it from sin, liberated it 
by grace, and delivered it by a full remission from the burden of 
sin. This also explains the expression of St. Paul in Romans 
(Rom. ix. 1). "My conscience also bearing me witness in the 
Holy Ghost." Here you see necessarily a privileged conscience, 
more, much more, than the obscure conscience of the heathen ; 
more also than the enlightened conscience of a civilized man — 
more than one enlarged by education and the light of the age. 
Moreover, the doctrine of adoption not only establishes and affirms 
that the Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits, that we are the 
children of God ; but also that this spirit leads the children of God, 
and that " those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children 
of God." From that time, a Christian conscience receives not 
merely this first, and I may affirm greater witness of just or unjust 
actions, honest or dishonest, as w T e may say of all things, but it 
adds a yet finer tact, a new sense, a superior discernment almost 
heavenly, which St. Paul characterizes as very glorious, when he 
says, " the spiritual man judges all things, yet is himself judged by 
no man." For who has a right in this world, to judge the con- 
sciences of those who are justified, since one is even forbidden to 
judge of the carnal conscience ? The spiritual man is drawn by 
strange impulses to the will of the flesh, which is not subject to 
the Law of God, neither indeed can be. His aspirations soar 
higher, and his motives are not only purer and more elevated, but 
the movement which follows them, the active thought, the move- 
ment of the Spirit, is quite a different thing from that natural activ- 
ity by which the human will is determined in the enterprises of 
this world. Who shall be able to judge of this life and principle ? 

4th. There are therefore two consciences. I see first a con- 
science of sin, then a conscience without reproach, that is, a con- 
science justified ; and then follows conscience, a councillor or 
guide. Finally, a good conscience, or witnessing by the Spirit, 
and " obeying the truth through the Spirit, with a true heart, with- 
out hypocrisy, keeping the mystery of faith in a pure conscience," 
such as the heirs of the kingdom God ought to possess ; and as 
the Apostle dares to affirm of himself — " We trust we have a good 
conscience, in all things willing to live honestly." (Heb. xiii. 18.) 
Finally, we may truly say, there is a good conscience, or a con- 
science planning rightly. 

This regards equally the past, present, and future ; and supposes 
already a certain degree of spiritual force, acquired, and rooted 
in the subject of grace. This is the established resolution of good, 
of holy resolution, and the solid, vigorous root of anew and pow- 
erful will. In vain does the sinner form plans of conversion and 
of a better life, while his will is yet ungrafted, like a good graft 
on a living tree, and while there stands against him a permanent 
accusation, which deprives him of strength and all true courage, 
and which also reduces him in spite of himself to remember the 
depths of iniquity which yet remain uncleansed — unremoved. 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 177 

That conscience is the master-piece of grace, and constitutes 
the true renewal of the divine image in justice, and in true holi- 
ness. The foundation is wanting in the sinner, even in his best 
moments he has not even a velteity for good — he is altogether 
corrupt, from the head even to the feet. For though he may have 
something which men call sincerity, and which resembles it some- 
what ; this sincerity, which does not justify by itself, is then really 
the commencement of the kingdom of God — the invisible Empire, 
extending itself over the soul of the converted man; and when one 
can say he really belongs to God, from that moment integrity sub- 
sists before him and all his promises are realized. 

This conscience corresponds with the simple eye. To a simple 
view of the only path of duty, the only right line, is joined an in- 
tention or simple wish to walk in it. Its root is like an undivided 
thread ; and now there is no more of this division of the heart, so 
subtle, so condemned in the Word. " The man whose heart is 
divided, or double-hearted, double-minded" (James i.), "You 
who are double-minded " — by which he does not mean here gross 
hypocrisy, — but division between its own desires, secret and al- 
most imperceptible, which yet remains with those who wish to 
be free, yet by this course dissipate all their strength, and paralyze 
their efforts, by their own carelessness or mistakes, andihus make 
life a perpetual inconsistency ; 

" O God, what cruel strife J 
I find two wills within me,"&.c. 

instead of all this, a condition truly miserable and worthy of pity 
— a movement, a momentary impulse (as there is one only faith 
and one only grace), to combat or to fly temptation, not only 
without an agreement with it, but without stopping even to con- 
sider the doubt ; yes, without a particle of time for hesitation. 
It is God in the soul, with all that is jealous and absolute in his 
love, according to the summary of the law ; it is faith operating 
by charity ; it is the hidden mystery, to know " Christ in us, the 
hope of glory." 

There is, therefore, something more than this good and honest 
heart necessary to receive the seed of God at the very commence- 
ment of the work of God. It is the crown of the new man — it is 
his integrity — it is the fulfilment of the wish of Paul, " That all 
that is within you, spirit, soul, and body, may be preserved blame- 
less;" — it is the fulness of praises of which. David speaks in 
Psalm ciii. : £Let all that is within m© bless the name of thy ho- 
liness !" 

This, then, is the end of this unhappy division of the powers 
that God has created to desire good; and not only to desire it, but 
to do it ; and of which Paul laments in the close of the seventh chap- 
ter of Romans, saying that he had a will to do well, but could not 
find the means of accomplishing it ! This good conscience gives 
the true conductor, which shall ascend to the hill of the Lord, 
and attain otherwise inaccessible heights. 

Now is mercy complete ; it is not received' in' vain ; all is ac- 
9 * - 



178 CHRISTIAN STUDIES, 

complished ; for God is obeyed. What though the external effect 
be not yet perfect, the will at least, the internal disposition to pro- 
duce it, is entire, and avows itself boldly ; not fearing to be proud 
to say to the Lord, " Try me," and is willing to be submitted to the 
fire which tries all things, inasmuch as he can endure the flames, 
who can look it steadily in the face, like the eagle, who, in its up- 
ward flight, fixes its steady gaze on the sun, through the power 
given him by its almighty Creator. 

For holiness is equally essential to the children of God as to his 
angels : the sinner will therefore first speak of his goodness, of 
his love, of his mercy, in approaching the Lord, in tasting that 
He is sweet. But holiness — oh that he knew it, and desired to 
walk in it ! 

SOME OF THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD. 

The glory of the workman shines forth in his works. The 
genius of the artist appears in the characters that he knows how 
to sketch, to ornament, and sustain, than which, perhaps, no- 
thing could be more perfect, because he has placed there some- 
thing of his own spirit. You admire it as a choice specimen of 
human workmanship. The spirit of poetry charms you, and you 
have felt its power. Confess, then, candidly, have you never re- 
marked some of those silent beauties with which the Book of 
God is ever clothed ? It is, perhaps, one of the most singularly 
grand and original characteristics of the Bible, that those men, 
whom it does not call great men, who bear no resemblance to 
our heroes, it describes in passing, as if without design, with a 
kind of generous forgetfulness and divine negligence, yet imparting 
to them a glory which exceeds all wmo name themselves, in 
sketching some of their marked characteristics. It exceeds all 
that has ever been told by any other historian, or traced by any 
other limner. It exceeds, as one remarks, those sculptured by 
Plutarch. Human statuary ! Stop and admire ! Man of God, 
take thy pencil ; thou hast only to copy, to repeat the image. 
Open thy repository ; it is rich, it is vast, and in the first leaves 
equally with the last, shalt thou see beings passing from this 
world to that which is to come. Enoch, "the seventh man," 
foretold the coming of the great King, and from the beginning 
looked even to the end of the world to behold him, saying, " Be- 
hold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute 
judgment upon the earth" (Jude xiv. 15); and the man who r 
many centuries later, composed " the pleasant songs of Israel," 
cries out, " The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thou- 
sands of angels : the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, as in the- 
holy place" (Ps. Ixviii. 17). Let us go on a little farther; yield 
an attentive ear, and listen to the funeral oration of a great peo- 
ple, who wept for him thirty days. His body cannot be found ; 
God has hid it from them, lest it should become an object of wor- 
ship. Upon none other of the sons of men has there been such 
an eulogy pronounced : " And there arose not a prophet since in 
Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face " (Deut. 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 179 

xxxiv. 10), whose vigor was not abated (at a hundred and twenty- 
years of age), and whose eye was not dim. He was truly one 
whom we may call an oak of justice, a plant of the Lord, to 
glorify him ! Abraham had also seen his day, and had re- 
joiced in it: Abraham, father of nations, lord of the cove- 
nants, patriarch of the promises, representative of the true faith, 
he whom God called his friend, and from whom he did not conceal 
his plans. " Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do ?" 
But wherefore follow the succession of time, when He who has 
made it observes not its order ? See you not that he annihilates 
all time to re-unite, to group these subjects of His royal kingdom ? 
Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they should deliver but 
their own souls by their righteousness. Seek the Lord, " That 
he may better judge of the greatness of His indignation, and the 
power of His dreadful anger ;" hear now the protestation, even the 
oath of Him who, " because He could swear by no greater, swore 
by Himself." (Heb. vi. 13. ) " As I live, saith the Lord, I will not 
show mercy to you." ** For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say 
I live for ever. If I whet my glittering sword, I will make my ar- 
rows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, &c." 
(Deut. xxxii 40, 41, 42.) The Judge of the world will say " That 
these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in it" (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20), 
and this is indeed a remarkable expression. But wherefore this 
group ? Why this sacred trio ? History of the Hebrews, unroll 
thy pages : sacred volume of the annals of this great people, 
teach us now, " For what nation is there so great, who hath God so 
nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon 
Him for ?" (Deut. iv. 7.) Though Noah, Daniel and Job stood be- 
fore me ! They are too great for all panegyric. A few words 
from the Bible, one characteristic of each will express more than 
we could say ; this is their due. Noah "the tenth" (we have 
seen the seventh man, for we consider as ages these men, these 
giants, these men of renown), Noah the tenth, the Prophet, the 
herald, the " prophecier of Justice," herald of judgments. He built 
the Ark, and by this Ark which he built by faith, he condemned 
the world ! The world then perished in the flood — not one of the 
ungodly escaped ; he had warned them, he had cried to them, he 
had published, threatened and preached, during the space of a 
hundred and twenty years, all in vain. Type of the future. So 
will it be in the end of this world, as it was in the days of Noah. 
And Daniel, in the days of the captivity ! Daniel a pleasant man, 
a man to be desired ! From the commencement of his prayer, the 
word of deliverance has gone forth .... the throne of heaven is 
moved — the archangel spreads his wings and prepares at that very 
hour, at that moment even, to leave the presence of Him whom 
he never ceases to worship and adore. Daniel, Belshazzar, chief 
of the Magi — Daniel, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods ! 
What glory, what happiness, what honor ! He has shut the mouths 
of the lions. ... 0, Daniel ! thy God sees thee yet ! He has de- 
clared to this king of kings and of nations who boasts himself, 
that seven times shall pass over him, and he shall be driven out 



180 CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 

with the beasts of the field, until he knows that the Lord reigns, 
and that His Kingdom ruleth over all. But I must hasten to the 
end of my journey. Job, the most powerful of the Orientals . . . 
his reasoning with the great God, who deigns to reply to him from 
out the whirlwind. He only can silence Job, before whom his 
elders w^ere as children and fools. Behold these three men. has 
there ever been any like them ? Let us speak of the great king, 
who built, who consecrated a holy temple to the Lord, who fell 
upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and prayed 
and blessed the people with his hands raised to heaven. There 
are here yet greater than Solomon, of whom, however, we cannot 
speak. We will not speak of the giant slain by the youthful shep- 
herd, the son of Jesse. We will say nothing of Nehemiah, whose 
countenance was sad when he thought of the desolation of the 
city of his fathers, and who, after a painful journey, was obliged 
to make by night the circuit of the city in a country surrounded 
by enemies. We will merely name Ezra, and his honorable title, 
Ezra scribe of the words of the Law of the Lord, with prayers and 
tears confessing the sins of the people. 

Let us change the scene. Behold Moses and Elias on Mount 
Tabor ; the Law and the Prophets united; the latter yet great by 
his challenge, his defiance and his victory over the four hundred 
priests of Baal. Besides these men, who are those three, so 
different in their appearance, and yet so closely related in their 
interests ? They are Peter, James, and John, afterwards known 
as the pillars. See these five witnesses of the double covenant, 
making by their presence here a moving pavilion, a tent prepared 
for a night, like the mortal life of man ; like the tabernacle in the 
wilderness, raised in honor of Him, who, descending from the 
skies, w 7 alks upon the heights ; goes from hill to hill, from the 
mountain of Capernaum, where he teaches, to Moriah, where he 
preaches ; from Jordan where he is baptized, to the Mount of Olives, 
where he suffers ; and to Calvary, where he expires, fulfilling the 
w^ords of the prophecy. " How beautiful upon the mountains, 
are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings ; that publisheth 
peace ; that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth !" Glorious beauty, 
hidden loveliness, the perfection of love, of mercy, and truth 
shining from the cross. 

The Holy One is dead, and no one regards it. But the Gospel 
is preached— witnesses are multiplied — the Holy Ghost accompa- 
nies their words, with the demonstration of the spirit, and with pow- 
er. Look at them once more unitedly before they separate to preach 
the Gospel to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. The disciple 
whom Christ loved, and who loved Christ. * * * * James and John, 
you were well called Boanerges — sons of thunder. Without doubt, 
your irresistible word, your powerful spirit, which vanquished all 
error, and silenced all falsehood, tells this which distinguishes you. 

Cephas, Peter, rock — rock of faith, rock built upon the weaves, 
which yet the tempest cannot shake ! And Saul become Paul, 
incomprehensible man, standing alone from all the world (like 
Job of old) without the sacred college of the prophets. Hear him 



CHRISTIAN STUDIES. 181 

speak of himself as an untimely birth, as the least of the apostles, 
not worthy to be called an apostle, because he had persecuted 
the Church of Christ. Yet, he dares to add : " I have labored 
more abundantly than they all ; yet, not I, but the grace of God 
which was with me." The love of Christ constraining me. And 
how did it operate? "In dangers oft; in dangers from false 
brethren ; a day and a night in the deep," &c. (2 Cor. xi. 26). 

Singular preaching of doctrine ! Revealing in detail the Lord's 
Supper, at which he had not been present, but which he had re- 
ceived from the Lord himself ; and presenting it in its most perfect 
development, and with all its mysterious excellence. — (1 Cor. 
xi. 23.) 

Let us praise, says the son of Sirach, let us praise these illustrious 
men, &c. — Chap. li. In the midst of this glorious cortege, the 
august image of the Son of man shines forth : the root and the 
offspring of David, his Lord and his Son, the bright and morning 
Star, with a new and purer brilliancy. The messenger who pre- 
pared the* way before Him, in the spirit and power of Elias, 
though holy from his mother's womb, and greater than all who 
had preached him, yet felt himself unworthy to unloose the shoe 
from his foot. What a man among such men, how wise among 
so many wise men, each of whom is one of a thousand. What a 
prophet in the midst of the prophets ! Truly this is He of whom 
Moses spake to our fathers : " The Lord thy God will raise up 
unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren ; and 
ivhosoever shall not hear this prophet, shall be cut off from the 
midst of the people." " This is my beloved Son in whom I am 
well pleased, hear ye him." God of God, Light of Light, ascend- 
ing upon high — the Counsellor wonderful. 

We have now seen some of the pillars of this holy temple ; but 
is the temple itself empty ? What is the temple without the 
Divine presence ? Destroy this temple ! He will raise it up ! Is 
not His name Emmanuel ! God with us ! " Behold I will send 
you the Comforter." And now, pious souls, the Lord whom you 
love — the Angel of the Covenant that ever attends you will enter 
His temple, and will not wait. Behold ! He comes, saith the Lord 
of Hosts. 



FAITH 



AND 



KNOWLEDGE 



TRANSLATED BYM. M. BACKUS. 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 



'Ei> rr} TTiarci v^v . . . rfjv yvwaivl 

" Add to your faith .... knowledge." — 2 Peter i, 5. 

Knowledge and faith, as set forth in our text, are, in the opinion 
of the world, two opposite things, and mutually exclude each 
other. Faith in revealed verities, as one has remarked, is incom- 
patible with that profound erudition of the human intellect, which 
probes the depths of the earth, measures the expanse of the hea- 
vens, and explores the still more mysterious realms of the spirit of 
man. The names of Bacon, Newton, Pascal, Leibnitz, Euler, and 
a host of similar spirits, have come into collision with, and more 
than once repelled, that singular assertion. You will nevertheless 
constantly meet it in the world, for there is not a single error 
which men are not incessantly struggling to rebuild in our 
midst. 

It is not, however, to combat this error that we shall devote the 
present hour. Our design is to penetrate farther into the essence 
of faith, andt nto the domain of knowledge. We shall consider 
another faith and another knowledge ; the faith of the heart, or 
the Christian life, and theology, or the knowledge of God. 

In reality, if we step beyond the threshold and enter the sanc- 
tuary of divine knowledge, we will there discover the same claims 
set up, which we had just left behind in the world, applied, how- 
ever, to other objects. Faith is there the new principle of life, 
and of holiness, which the word of the Holy Spirit develops in the 
hearts of the elect of God. 

Knowledge, or theology, is the philosophy of that faith, the re- 
sult of researches, reflection, and patient labor of the human in- 
tellect applied to divine things, and endeavoring to investigate 
and impart to them clearness, definiteness, and that systematic 
oneness, of which they are susceptible. 

In this novel field the spectator is immediately struck with the 
decision of its incompatibility with knowledge ; not, it is true, 
that certain historic faith, of which all theologians ought to a 
greater or less degree to be in possession, but the living faith of 
Christians. Unregenerate theologians direct against this doctrine 
the same attacks, and the same engines of war, as the wise of this 
world employ against the wisdom of God. There is not the slight- 
est agreement, if you listen to those men, between a living faith 
and theology. 



186 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

It must be acknowledged that there is some truth concealed 
under their assertions. The two things, faith aud theology, have 
been, and are still often separated by many ministers of the gos- 
pel. Among them are those who are uniquely theologians, inti- 
mately acquainted with the various branches of theological sci- 
ence, and able to explain the Christian system with the most me- 
thodical exactness, but in whose hearts the life of faith never had 
existence. On the other hand, there are some of their number who 
enjoy the faith of the heart, the Christian life, but are strangers to 
theology, and regard it as an undoubted science, but still a barren 
one, from which they may never hope to derive any personal ad- 
vantage. 

Your feet are exposed to both these by-paths of error. With a 
large number of theologians we have believed that it was unne- 
cessary for the ministers of Christ at the present day to isolate 
these two things, and that their just combination would result in 
the greatest utility to the service of God. We have concluded, in 
accordance with the apostolic declaration, that the pastor ought 
to be a teacher. (Ephes. iv. 11.) 

Let us then briefly investigate the relations in which faith stands 
to knowledge ; let us indicate the necessity of the -former, and the 
advantages of the latter, and at the same time lay down in our 
charts the sunken rocks which we should avoid. 

FAITH. 

And first, I address myself to those who, not having in their 
heart the living faith of Christians, may be harboring the imagina- 
tion of supplying its place with theology. 

It is impossible for a Christian, and by consequence for a minis- 
ter, to exist without the life of faith. You may think that the sci- 
entific development of Christian doctrine will produce within you 
that living faith, without which you cannot exist. No, my breth- 
ren. The work of man cannot create the work of God. Theology 
is not the mother of faith, but faith is the mother of theology. 

The cultivation of theological science has never produced a 
renovation of Christian life in the church. It is the simple preach- 
ing of Christian truths, it is that faith of the heart, that conviction, 
and those intimate experiences, which are expressed by the Apos- 
tle with a holy enthusiasm — " I believed and therefore have spok- 
en" (2 Cor. iv. 13) — from which such renovations have ever tak- 
en their rise. If these are instances where theological instruction 
has been the means of producing the faith of the heart — and the 
number is by no means small — it was due not to the theological 
element, but the element of faith, whi^h was found in that instruc- 
tion. It was because the teacher was full of faith, and not be- 
cause he was full of reflection, that he became a means of regene- 
ration. Faith produces faith, but idea produces only idea. The 
purity, the definiteness, and the systematic arrangement of doc- 
trines, has never given birth to spiritual life. 

It is not a school, nor a theologian, to whom the minister or the 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 187 

simple believer in quest of faith ought to address himself. It is 
to the chief, to Jesus Christ. Seek life not in the apophthegms of 
knowledge, but in Him " in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the 
Godhead bodily," (Col. ii. 9.) Every believer, and consequently 
every minister, is called upon in his office of prophet, to ask im- 
mediately from Jesus Christ his own measure of grace. The 
quality of mediator between God and man no more appertains to 
the knowledge of the theologian, than to the hierarchy of the 
priest. It is not in any theological summary, nor in any common 
places,* in which men should search for faith ; but in the Bible, 
immediately in the Bible, through the illumination of the Holy 
Spirit, promised unto all. 

Let us advance another step. How" far soever theology maybe 
from producing life, it is nevertheless the Christian life which pro- 
duces theology. It is faith which furnishes science with the 
media of knowledge, the ideas upon which it ought to reflect, and 
the elements which it ought to combine. For the true knowledge, 
which enlightens the eyes, is constructed not out of abstract ideas 
and dead elements, but out of living doctrines and principles, 
which are quickened into life by the Spirit of God. 

There is another point farther on, which we may also reach. 
It is a giving faith, which imparts to the spirit that rapture, that 
expansion, that depth, and that activity, necessary to set in mo- 
tion the primitive elements, and thus give birth to a system with 
all its ramifications entire. An epoch dead in the matter of faith 
has never produced, and never will produce, a theology. The 
epochs which have been creative of knowledge have uniformly 
been preceded — history assures us of the fact — by a revival of 
Christian life in the Church. It was the upsoaring of faith which 
was the parent of those theological treatises that signalize the 
age of Augustine, of the scholastics of the thirteenth century, 
and of the Reformers. 

If you would be theologians, cast yourselves into the current 
of living waters. It is faith which gives the impulse, without 
which no noble deed can ever be produced : that just truth, with- 
out which you will ramble in despair among vain systems ; that 
life, without which *your path will only lie through a valley of 
dry bones. 

Test, then, the opposite system. Let the Christian life be only 
a princijDle of your theology, and then you will fall into the one 
or the other of two evils : for either you will cast yourselves, as 
thousands have done before you, upon the speculative distinc- 
tions of useless dialectics ; or, choosing a negative tendency, 
and a hostile attitude, you will take up arms against what you 
ought to defend ; you will exercise, in the sphere which is as- 
signed to you, only a destructive influence, and instead of erect- 
ing an edifice to the living God, you will be amusing yourselves, 
as so many theologians, alas ! have done, in destroying that 
which already exists, and rejoicing over its ruins. 

* Summa theologica and Loci communes, were the ordinary titles of theolo- 
gical theories before and after the Reformation. 



18S FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

And what basis, gentlemen, would you construct for theology, 
if not the Word of God, and faith in the divine testimony wrought 
in the heart by the Holy Spirit? If theology has not that basis, 
it must of necessity repose either upon the transitory direction 
of the spirit of the age, or else upon the adventuresome specula- 
tions of the human reason. With only such points of support, 
knowledge will have strange wanderings, lamentable falls, and 
will soon be lost from view in those winding passages, the limits 
of which are overhung with the shades of night. In order that 
the tree of knowledge may prosper, it must, as David says, be 
planted upon the banks of the stream of the law of God ; and it 
should uniformly and exclusively gather from that pure current 
its sap and its elements of life. Then it will send forth its fruit 
in its season ; its foliage will not dry up ; it shall flourish for 
ever. But if any strange elements should be absorbed by the 
roots, the same tree will soon change its color, will languish, will 
perish and die. 

Or rather, plant the txee upon the declivity of Golgotha, in the 
shadow of the cross, and under the very eyes of the love of the 
crucified God, who is the wisdom of God and life itself. That 
which gives life to the most humble faith of the poorest believer, 
is the same as that which gives it the most sublime knowledge of 
the wisest teacher. 

Faith is not only the creative principle of theology, but is 
also its renovating power. Knowledge — we have too many ex- 
amples of the fact — can detach itself from the Word of God. At 
such times it goes astray ; a fever of incredulity rages in the 
veins, and a crisis has entered upon its development. What will 
heal the disorder ? What will restore the wanderer to the right 
path ? 

Statutes, laws, acts of power ? Doubtless those who have been 
appointed to the oversight of education ought to guard against 
the influence of that which, instead of communicating life, gives 
only death. But any external force, arrests of justice, and human 
power, will never suffice for the cure of the malady. Restrain its 
action temporarily without, and it will only commit the greater 
ravages within. 

What then shall save knowledge ? 

The life of the Church, my brethren, the simple faith of be- 
lievers. That faith and that life existed anterior to all theology, 
and independently of all knowledge ; they can never perish, and 
in them is found the energy which is to heal the nations. Upon 
theology they exercise a powerful reaction. The teachers, envi- 
roned on every side with manifestations of the Christian faith, 
will, in spite of themselves, be drawn back, and that by an irre- 
sistible force, towards the focus of light and life. They will be 
constrained to abandon, one by one, all their perilous positions. 
Truth every day will gain greater power in the camp of the ene- 
my, and will gradually concentrate an overwhelming opposing 
force. Knowledge itself, obliged to recognize the fact of her for- 
mer detachment from that to which it ought to have been united, 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 189 

will elevate her standard again, and cover the errors of know- 
ledge. It may be, for the case is not an extraordinary one, that it 
was scepticism in the Church which carried scepticism into the- 
ology. The faith of the Church will restore faith to theology. 

That which has infected must heal ; that which struck the blow 
will bind up the wound. The life and light of the Church are 
the sun of theology : when the sun is concealed, knowledge is 
overshadowed and perishes ; when he shines forth anew, know- 
ledge reappears in his train under the impulse of a new life. 

Therefore, my brethren, in order that knowledge may be cul- 
tivated with success in a university, an academy, or a school, 
there is need of the presence of liberty, but first of all of piety ; 
there is need of ideas, but before them there is need of faith ; 
there is, in fine, need of knowledge, but antecedent to all else 
there is need of submission to the Word of God. Schools of 
theology, in order to prosper m a scientific form, ought to become 
sanctuaries. Far from them be every profane mocker — far from 
them all buffoonery, unseemly jesting, loose morals, and con- 
formity to a world buried in sin. These would prove their de- 
struction, both as temples of knowledge and as seminaries of the 
prophets. 

The holiness of a school is the surest guaranty for the know- 
ledge of a school. 

" The Levites shall be mine," saith the Lord. 

KNOWLEDGE. 

Faith, then, is necessary to theology. But there is a second 
rock which we must lay down in the chart : that against which 
all those have dashed who have regarded theology as a sterile 
science, without application and without advantage to the 
Church. 

Let us first then obtain a definite apprehension of what we now 
mean by the term knowledge. It is not that haughty knowledge 
which puffeth up, but an humble science, which is conscious of 
knowing nothing by itself, and of being bound to apprehend 
everything from the word. It is not a knowledge detached from 
God, but one which God himself accords to fervent prayers, to 
conscientious investigations, to serious and holy meditations, and 
all the works which are vivified and rendered efficacious by the 
breathings of the Holy Spirit. 

The actual state of the world, and of the French nation in par- 
ticular, demonstrates too forcibly the utility and necessity of this 
knowledge. Why is Christianity so little known, and its funda- 
mental doctrines so grossly misconceived ? We will not hesitate 
to declare our own conviction of the cause. It is because, while 
other sciences have been taking a rapid flight, the science of 
theology has had no existence with us during the present gene- 
ration, or at best has existed in an enfeebled frame. 

There are perhaps certain epochs in the social and intellectual 
development of a people, in which it will suffice for the Christian 
life to animate the church. But that will not suffice in the pre- 



190 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

sent actual state of society. When man is fully developed in 
every function, it is man in his maturity which religion should 
embrace. She is large enough for the task, and there is nothing 
in the man which can escape her grasp. The faculty of cogni- 
tion, which is within us, must find aliment enough of the kind 
it requires, and ample room enough for the development of its 
energies. The intellect comes from God, as well as the affections 
and the will. To pretend, as some have done, that it is sufficient 
for Christianity to speak to the heart, and that it can abandon the 
intellect without yielding any satisfaction to its demands, is to 
advance the same proposition as that the sun rises only upon a 
part of the creation of God ; it is the same as to revolt against 
that order which has been established from on high. 

It has become necessary for Christianity to defend her own 
position. She must maintain her own rank in the face of all 
human sciences. Theology must take up its residence in the 
bosom of Christian societies, and become, what the great regene- 
rator of modern sciences, Lord Bacon, has called it, " the transcen- 
dental science. 51 

Do not imagine that the existence of this science is useless for 
the salvation of souls. Wherefore is it, that in all countries where 
theological science is cultivated, as Germany for example, so 
much knowledge and intelligence is found among the laity, and 
so many true Christians, while with us they are so rare in the 
same proportion ? 

The existence of the science alone will explain the phenome- 
non. It has rendered men of wit and education attentive to the 
instructions of God. It has led them also to direct their eyes 
towards the branches of the tree which they are cultivating. 
Science has rendered the Word of God and Christianity honora- 
ble, even in the eyes of philosophers : some of their number have 
investigated it for the simple pleasure of its knowledge, but in 
that propitious moment Christianity has seized them, and the 
Word of God has proved their salvation. 

Let us, then, lament, that while all sciences enjoy so much 
favor and so many worshippers among Frenchmen, the science 
of theology is still without monuments and without trophies — 
we should almost have said, without an existence and a name. 
Let us weep over the fact, that while all the branches of the tree 
of knowledge, under the shade of which our generation delights 
to repose, are full of vigor, and loaded with the richest fruits, 
still that branch which is the principal one of the tree, is fragile, 
desiccate, despoiled of its verdure, and barren of fruit. This 
immense vacuum is one of the most efficient causes of the humiliat- 
ed condition of the faith. 

The general opinion, however, tends in a contrary direction. 
You will meet not only men of the world, and adversaries of the 
faith, but even men and ministers of unquestionable piety, who 
pretend that every evil in the Church comes of theology. 

Theology, say they, with its precise definitions, its subtle dis 
tinctions and its sententious systems, darkens the simplicity of the 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 191 

faith, dampens the fervor of the Christian life, and dishonors reli- 
gion in the sight of all well educated men. & Theology has proved 
the bane of Christianity. Happy days, when there was no theo- 
logy ! O. the simplicity of Christian doctrine in the primitive ages 
of the church ! Would to heaven we might return thither ! 

This so much vaunted simplicity of the primitive ages, I will 
here remark, does not deserve to be all that is made of it. In a 
great number of instances it was the offspring of ignorance rather 
than of a strict attachment to the line of truth ; it was the simpli- 
city of infants, who knew but little, rather than that of men, who, 
having weighed good and evil, chose to attach themselves to the 
good. Thus that simplicity so much regretted by men, who are 
crying out for piety and not for knowledge, was far from being 
exempt from errors, and oftentimes very grave ones. 

But let us come to that objection, which has been deemed wor- 
thy of signal repetition ; namely, that this study is no protection 
against the waywardness of science and none against science 
itself. It must be confessed, that that is a false direction of know- 
ledge which makes it come in collision with the simplicity of 
the faith. But it is only in the Christian life that true knowledge 
has any guaranties for its vigor and prosperity. Whenever it is 
developed independently of that life, it is soon seen to lose itself 
in vain formulas and in idle distinctions : it becomes a game of 
dialectics, which stifles in all who cultivate it the last respirations 
of life, and destroys in theology and religion all that consideration, 
which is their peculiar property. 

This, however, is not knowledge : it is not a legitimate branch 
of the tree. It is a parasitical plant, which, in spite of its efforts 
put forth to confound its woody boughs and yellowish leaves with 
the true branch, will still be detected by the master of the tree as 
illegitimate and pernicious, and will be forced to disengage itself 
from its unnatural union. 

The objection, then, turns in favor of that true science, which, 
emanating from the word of God, and intimately connected with 
the Christian life, flees from such vagaries. It is not a dry skele- 
ton, which it would present to the world as the symbol of truth: 
it is a body, clothed with flesh, and filled with the Holy Spirit, and 
with the life that cometh from on high. It will not isolate any of 
the faculties of man. Addressing itself to his intelligence, it also 
addresses itself to his heart. That which you reproach it with 
lacking, is precisely that which, above all other things, it possess- 
es in the most eminent degree ; consequently it will be the very 
opposite of that, which your fears have represented it to be. At- 
tacking every individual, it will gain over every individual to its 
cause. 

Doubtless, says another objector, the science is useful to the 
world, for those without, as the Scripture says — but it is useless 
for the church. 

Strange illusion ! The legitimate science, such as we have de- 
scribed to you, will render the church the most distinguished ser- 
vice. It will maintain the Christian doctrine pure from all strange 



192 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

elements : and when the latter may receive contamination from 
any quarter, the former will be at hand as its refiner. 

Such strange elements too readily penetrate, first, the Christian 
life, then the idea of Christianity, and at length knowledge itself. 
This is what took place in the first periods of the Church. Strange 
elements had gradually united themselves so intimately with the 
scriptural elements, and so effectually incorporated themselves 
with the faith of Christians, that it was almost impossible to dis- 
tinguish the true from the false. Teachers and simple-hearted 
believers presented an inconceivable mixture of falsehood and 
truth. 

The discernment of these diverse elements, the separation of the 
false from the true, is one of the most ennobling tasks of true sci- 
ence. It is one of the works to which she has been destined by 
God. Her piercing and unfailing eye discerns in that confused 
assembly that which is from God, and that which is from man. 
A true servant of the domestic head, theology is constantly drag- 
ging the net, which is cast into the sea of ages, and is constantly 
amassing, in the lapse of time, materials of every conceivable 
variety of character. With the torch of Revelation in her hand, 
she discovers and disentangles that which is corrupt from that 
which is pure : she stores away all that is good in chosen vessels, 
and flings away again all that is worthless. 

And what she has once purified she will keep pure. She will 
watch with all the vigilance of a sleepless sentinel, that the pride 
of human reason and the vagaries of enthusiasm do not approach 
to injure the plant which she has preserved. As the officers who 
are placed in charge by the sovereign, to see that no vulgar in- 
gredients be combined with the pure gold in the formation of the " 
royal jewels, so a pure theology is charged by our Lord to main- 
tain Christian doctrine, that jewel of God, pure from all human 
dross, and in the holiness and regal beauty which belonged to her 
upon her first descent from heaven. 

We turn, however, to remind you of the advantages it offers to 
you, who are educated in her holy tuition, called to be one day 
the dispensers of her treasures. And what advantages has not 
knowledge to bestow upon the minister of the word ? What ser- 
vice in particular has she not rendered to the very age in which we 
live ? Of how great necessity is her existence at an epoch when 
there are so many objections, doubts, and controversies, not only 
in relation to this or that unimportant point but also to a point, 
which concerns the fundamental doctrines of salvation. 

It is true knowledge — knowledge formed under the combined 
influence of the Holy Spirit and the word, and blessed from above 
— which will enable you to penetrate most deeply into divine 
revelation; which will capacitate you to find new treasures, un- 
foreseen and veiled from the ordinary reader, and which, while 
they augment your knowledge, will also enrich your experience, 
and increase the efficiency of your ministry. 

It is this which, giving importance both to the holy doctrines 
and the sad errors of times which are no more, making manifest 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 193 

the faith and disclosing the failings of the church, will explain to 
you what is and what ought to be, by what has been; and will 
supply to your youth all the riches of a tried experience. This it 
is, which will qualify you to penetrate with a keen glance the 
actual condition of the church ; which will enable you to perceive 
the evils against which you have been forearmed ; which will 
place you on your guard against exaggerations, hesitations, and 
all peculiar and individual determinations, to which your heart 
exposes you ; and which, in the midst of the whirlwind of human 
opinions by which you are encircled, will communicate to your 
convictions, your views and your judgments, that perspicuity, that 
erect attitude and that immovable solidity, for which you will 
search in vain in your own selves. 

It is this which will render you capable of discerning good and 
evil, what is useful from what is injurious, either in relation to the 
Christian church generally, or to the particular flock, which the 
Chief has placed under your direction ; which will put you in a 
'condition to keep a reckoning of times, places and circumstances, 
and which will clearly discover to you the end which you should 
propose in your career, the proper means of attaining it, and will 
impart to your ministry a real and enduring usefulness. 

It is this which will assist you to avoid those rocks against 
which —alas ! we have too many examples — the purest zeal, when 
it is unenlightened by knowledge, is liable to dash and go to 
pieces ; and which, impressing upon all your works the characters 
of wisdom, reflection and discernment, will render your ministry 
honorable even in the eyes of the world. 

It is this which will give you those qualifications so indispensa- 
ble in a Christian minister, and so rarely found in combination ; 
largeness without latitudinarianism ; an exclusive submission to 
the word without bigotry ; and which, rendering your convictions 
at the same time profound and expansive, strengthening your 
spirit, and enlarging your heart, will permit you to throw wide 
open the arms of charity and embrace all your brethren without 
leading you astray from the isolated focus of truth, and the unas- 
sailable central point of faith. 

The knowledge which emanates from God will forearm you 
against that sad formalism which so often infects the evangelical 
minister, and transforms the services of Jesus Christ into a sordid 
trade. True knowledge will ever call back spirit, thought and 
life, in all your reflections and in all your works. It will not suf- 
fer your intellect to become a thing of manoeuvre. It will con- 
stantly recall the truth, and the Spirit of God should be combined 
with every affair of human life, the breath from on high with 
those elements which the earth presents. It will recall to you 
the fact, that you are of the number of " wise men." It will 
make head against everything which could tend to your ruin, 
and as the organ of God, will prevent your intellectual perceptions 
from growing dull, and your spirit from yielding to habits of slug- 
gishness. 

The knowledge which emanates from God will save you from 
9 



194 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

rationalism. Why do so many young intellects plunge themselves 
into that heresy, and run with such avidity through all its various 
stages ? Simply because they think to find in it food for their in- 
tellect and their reason. Vain attempts! For meanwhile their 
heart is drying up, their reason degrading itself, and their intellect 
is making to itself more straitened limits. It is Christian know- 
ledge alone which holds in reserve all that of which their vague 
desires, sometimes the offspring of pride, but often of generosity, 
are in quest. To that knowledge, young Levites, address your 
inquiries. She has somewhat to answer from her oracle. Seek 
not in the wisdom of a day that which God offers you in the secret 
depths of His eternity. Knowledge will satisfy all your wants. 
She will show you in Christ all the treasures of a divine wisdom. 
She will put you in possession of a light, which is to that of ra- 
tionalism what the sun in the heavens is to the will-o'-the-wisp 
hovering over a bog. Then discovering at once the meagerness 
of all the erroneous offspring of human wisdom, and the grandeur 
of the manifestations of the reason of God, you will cry out, as 
did the first of theologians, Augustine, when, after having long 
wandered in the labyrinth of systems, he at length found the true 
divine knowledge, " Alas ! too slowly have I learned thee." 

The knowledge which emanates from God will guard you against 
that false enthusiasm, which, entertaining certain sensations with 
great avidity, or tearing away certain ideas from the several groups 
to which they belong, abandons both of them to an unbridled 
imagination, where they boil and ferment until they break out into 
deplorable excesses — sometimes these will appear in theosophic 
speculations, sometimes in the disordered efforts of a vapory spirit, 
and sometimes in haughty pretensions to gifts and commissions, 
which no longer have existence, or to a fantastic condition of the 
church. Theological science will render you timely service in 
discovering to you all these errors. It will point them out to you 
in ancient times along with the sad fruits they there brought forth. 
It will discover to you their intimate connection with the corrup- 
tion of the heart, and with deadly doctrines. It will at the same 
time enable you to sift the good from the evil in those ancient 
dogmas, and thus furnish you a shelter against a wonderful con- 
tagion. 

The knowledge which emanates from God will put weapons in 
your hands to refute the vain sophisms of the times ; to make 
successful attacks upon specious errors ; to measure weapons, if 
it be necessary, with those who are practised in the use of arms 
of the intellect, with the wise in employing the weapons of know- 
ledge — weapons, as we have already remarked, to which God 
has not assigned the office of changing the heart, but which ne- 
vertheless can often remove lamentable prejudices, and thus pre- 
pare the way for that joy of heaven, the conversion of a sinner. 

But, it may be asked, is it required of us to prove the necessity 
of knowledge for the minister of Christ, as long as its necessity for 
every disciple, for every Christian, ought to be a truth of gene- 
ral recognition ? 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 195 

It is to all who have obtained an equal faith with the servants 
of Jesus Christ, that the Apostle Peter addresses the exhortation, 
" Add to your faith . . . knowledge." Doubtless there are de- 
partments of knowledge which are not absolutely necessary for 
every Christian, although it is very desirable for all to be pos- 
sessed of them. But there is a Christian knowledge in which all 
ought to be making constant progress, according* to their peculiar 
faculties and circumstances. Is not this demanded of those who 
are charged with teaching the natural sciences ? And why should 
it not also be required of theologians, who are studying theology, 
that is, the science of God, of that God " who is above all, and 
through all, and in you all ?" In an infected district, at the ap- 
proach of a formidable pestilence, all seek to acquire some de- 
gree of medical knowledge. And should not the science which 
treats of the remedy by which man can escape eternal death, be 
regarded of sufficient magnitude and importance in the eyes of 
you all to deserve your earnest application ? And where more 
important than for you, ministers of Christ ? 

What we have said will suffice, we trust, to demonstrate to all 
who will give it their serious attention, the necessity of not sepa- 
rating faith from knowledge, theology from piety, the shepherd 
from the teacher ; and we have at the same time contributed to 
unfold one of the causes of the institution of this Theological 
School, both to those who, overlooking faith, speak only of 
knowledge, and to those who, overlooking knowledge, speak 
only of faith. 

To study, then, my young friends, and to prayer: to prayer and 
to study ! Let prayer first acquire for us the gift of the Spirit of 
God, Let us abase ourselves by true humility, before elevating 
ourselves by reflection and knowledge : for " if any man think - 
eth that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he 
ought to know." Like the air vehicles invented by the wisdom 
of man, we must first exhaust ourselves, before we will be able to 
mount into the elevated mansions of knowledge and contempla- 
tion. 

Let faith be the key with which we approach the treasure, for 
the possession of which we are striving. For faith enables us to 
understand what the human intellect never could discover. The 
life which comes from God explains what meditation could never 
unfold. Faith is the eye with which we ought to be furnished, 
in order to penetrate into that unknown world of divine things 
which is the domain of theology. Faith is the true organ of the 
knowledge of God. It enables us to see the invisible, to compre- 
hend the incomprehensible. " For what man knoweth the things 
of a man save the spirit of man, which is in him ? Now the 
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God_ Now we 
have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which 
is of God : that we might know the things that are freely given 
to us of God." 

One thing more. Let holiness, let a life and conversation truly 
Christian, give us an intellectual perception, which can only be 



196 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

obtained with them. For, what is it that beclouds our spirit and 
darkens our understanding, unless it be sin ? Lift the veil, and you 
will see. The more dead you are to sin, the more keen will be 
your eye, the more luminous your knowledge, and the more ex- 
panded your conceptions. Every Christian work, every self-re- 
nunciation, is not only a step in sanctification, but also one in 
knowledge and in theology. If the angels know^more than we, it 
is because they are purer than ourselves. Darkness — that is sin : 
light — that is holiness. Let us press on, then, toward the light, 
in order to know Him who is light. " We shall see Him as He is ; 
and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself." 

Thus, then, disciples in the knowledge of God, we speak to 
you. " Pray, believe, be holy and blameless." But allow us to 
add to this, " Work." 

Work, then, my young friends. Examine with care those two 
mighty instruments of sacred theology, the Old and the New Tes- 
taments : those two columns, at the base of which the simple seek 
protection, and which even to the experienced and far-sighted 
lose their mysterious heads afar in the clouds of heaven. 

Review with discrimination all the facts, the teachings, the 
theories, the truths and the errors which history records for us, 
and even all the glimmering beams which philosophy throws upon 
the domain of knowledge, ever holding fast with an unfailing te- 
nacity to the thread, which is the conductor of our holy faith. 

Let us employ our intellect — explain, distinguish, and re-exam- 
ine all the elements which science offers us. Let us fathom every 
point of doctrine, considered apart and by itself: let us sound it to 
its deepest significancy, and at the same time let us collect all the 
parts, apprehend their several relations and their affinities, admire 
their proportion, their unity and their magnificent harmony. 

Let us by sanctified meditation elevate ourselves above the im- 
mense field which stretches before us. Let us consider science in 
all its phases. Let us place ourselves upon a holy mountain, 
from which we may discover all the country, which the Almighty 
has given us to conquer and possess. Let us trim our sails upon 
the stream, and, if needs be, trace the current in all its windings, 
re-mounting at one time to its source, and at another, following it 
to the end of its journey. Let us distinguish the primitive from 
the tributary waters, the principal from the accessory branches. 
Let us examine the marsh in which its pure water is defiled, be- 
cause the original impulse of the current fails. Let us contem- 
plate it when it glides sw T eetly v/ith its fertile waters under the 
banks that are enriched with its gifts, and when it casts itself 
headlong with the roar of breaking waves. Let us study the tribu- 
taries, which bring to it their strange waters, and the various soils 
over which it rolls its waves, that we may clearly apprehend the 
elements which it imprints upon them. Of all these constituents 
is our present science formed ; weighing all influences, and dis- 
cerning all combinations, for the purpose of disengaging the Chris- 
tian system, and constructing a sacred theology, which is the 
highest human science, because it is the science of God. 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 197 

Observe, my young friends, the fervor with which those apply 
themselves who are studying either the material body of man, or 
his legislations, or the natural sciences. Students in theology, 
know and rest assured that you possess a still more beautiful 
field. Let the zeal of your contemporaries for the works of their 
vocation make you enter again into yourselves, and inspire you 
with a new ardor ; yours is the study of God and man. Think of 
these things. 

Take then this science, which is calling your attention, from 
the humiliating state into which she is fallen. Restore it to its 
primitive greatness. Be filled with an holy jealousy for its ad- 
vancement ; for upon whose aid can she count, if not upon yours ? 
After reaching that point, having according to Scripture become 
" men in understanding," return according to the same Scripture 
to being " children in malice." Let our knowledge recall us to 
the faith of the simple ; but to a faith more thoroughly strength- 
ened, less exposed to change, and which, explored through all its 
windings, and examined in all its phases, can be defended at our 
hands with warmth, and distributed with wisdom, as sincere milk 
to babes, and as strong meat to them that are of full age. 



THE 



VOICE OF THE CHURCH ONE, 



UNDER ALL THE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



TRANSLATED BY REV. R. SMITH, 

JOF WATBRFORD, N. y. 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH ONE. 



A DISCOURSE, PRONOUNCED AT THE OPENING OF THE 
THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL AT GENEVA. 



What astonishing labors — what untiring activities — what varied 
efforts, do men employ on earth ! But time passes its level, for 
the most part, over their productions ; while they imagine them- 
selves to be building a tower which shall reach to the heavens, 
their proud works are confounded, after a few generations, with 
the sands of the desert. 

There is nothing stable here, but Christianity. That alone is 
immovable, like its Author. It is this rock against which have 
broken, and are still breaking, waves ever new, without being 
able to shake it. 

If, then, there is any one who wishes to give stability to his 
work on earth, let him connect it with Religion : it will receive 
from this connection an impress of immortality. 

I am aware, gentlemen, that these are truths not generally re- 
cognized among men. There are two prevailing errors on this 
subject. There are those who find nothing unchangeable even in 
the essence of Christianity. " The Christian doctrine," say they, 
" is only a particular development of the religious sentiment. This 
form has succeeded to a previous one, and will, in turn, be suc- 
ceeded by another. The Religion of Christ sprang necessarily 
out of the state of humanity in the time of the Caesars, as a tree 
in Spring produces buds and flowers." Singular error of Ration- 
alism ; but which history refutes in the clearest manner. History 
shows that Christianity was not in accordance with the directions 
of the human mind, at the time it appeared, but in direct opposi- 
tion to them. The wisdom of the world did not give Christianity 
birth ; — it sought to crush it. Christianity was not the child of 
the times ; it was, on the contrary, its adversary and regenerator : 
and as it was not from the dust of the earth that this precious 
fruit sprang, it cannot of course return thither again. Then did the 
Heavens give a treasure to the world, which successive genera- 
tions ought to transmit uncorrupted from hand to hand. This is 
the treasure which we have received ; which we are to hold with 
fear and reverence in earthen vessels ; and we, in turn, must trans- 
mit it to our posterity, still unchanged and unchangeable amongst 
9* 



202 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

millions of men, "until the Heavens and the earth flee away, and 
there is found no more place for them." 

But if we encounter, on the one hand, the triflers with Christi- 
anity, we meet, on the other, with those who would give to it 
a uniformity of appearance in all ages. There is something, un- 
doubtedly, which never changes in Christianity, and that is its 
essence ; but there is something also, which does change, and 
that is its appearance : and it is for want of properly understand- 
ing this distinction, that so many have erred in regard to the in- 
variableness of Christ's religion. A man changes his appearance 
at different ages of his life : his essence, never: — he is still the 
same man. 

The Christian Religion, at the time it came from heaven, was 
under the necessity, as is everything else in this world, of cloth- 
ing itself in a human form. The external circumstances of differ- 
ent epochs must exercise an influence upon the successive de- 
velopments of Christian truth. To such a form must succeed 
such another ; nor could these forms be things altogether indif- 
ferent. Some have been better than others ; but the same essen- 
tial verities have been found in all past varieties, and will be, in 
all which are to come. 

Gentlemen — the work in which we are engaged, and of which 
I am to give you some account to-day, is, in itself, a feeble, an 
humble work ; but here is its glory, that it belongs to the work 
of eternity. If we attach ourselves to that which belongs to the 
appearance of Religion only, we can have no security for that 
which we labor to defend. The first revolution of society would 
sweep our work to the tomb. But if we address ourselves to 
the essence of Christianity, the cause to which we devote our- 
selves partakes of the perpetuity of the work of God. We may 
fail ; and being mortal, we shall fail ; our school may fail ; but 
the cause to which it is devoted shall not fail, neither in this 
place, nor in all the earth. To that cause, according to the an- 
cient oracle, " the gathering of the people shall be." Yes, Gen- 
tlemen, here lies the foundation of all our hopes ; it is this which, 
by the^ grace of God, shall animate us in all our difficulties and 
trials : an4 it will be worth our pains to explain and defend, on 
the present occasion, this remarkable characteristic of the Reli- 
gion of Jesus Christ — The invar iableness of its doctrines, under dif- 
ferent forms ; or, The voice of the Church one and the same, in all 
ages. 

If we search in the different periods of history for the human 
forms in which the truth of God has been clothed, we shall find 
a great number. It is necessary, therefore, to bring them together 
— to reunite and amass them. We shall obtain thus, in the last 
synthesis, four periods, or principal forms of Christianity. — The 
first is the primitive, or the form of Life ; the second is the form of 
Dogma; the third, the Scholastic, or, the form of the School ; and 

the last, the form of the Reformation. The Church of Christ, to 

use a Scriptural illustration, is like an individual man. It has 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 203 

its youth, its maturity, its old age — and then, if we might so say, 
it has, without dying, a glorious resurrection. 

Let us run rapidly over these four forms — so diverse, I had al- 
most said, so opposite, in appearance — and see if we do not find, 
under each of them, the same unchangeable truths. 

We shall hear the voice of Doctors. Undoubtedly, the declara- 
tions of no one single man are sufficient to satisfy us what was the 
faith of the Church ; but if, on examining those Doctors who lived 
in countries the most distant from each other, we find, amidst 
great diversities of views, some doctrines on which they are all 
agreed, shall we not safely conclude that these doctrines have also 
been those of all the Church throughout the earth ? 

What, then, are the points on which to direct our present in- 
quiry ? 

All Christianity, as well as all religious Philosophy, has respect, 
necessarily, to three principal points. It has respect, at first, to 
God ; and then, to Man ; and then, to the relation between God 
and man ; or, the scheme adopted by Deity to restore man to him- 
self, which, is Redemption. 

Let us now see what the voice of the Church has taught us, on 
these three points, in the different periods of Christianity. — There 
is, 

I. THE FORM OF LIFE. 

In considering this form, we shall omit the time of the Apostles ; 
since that deserves to be considered by itself. The primitive form, 
according to our plan, commences with the successors of the Apos- 
tles, and extends to the time of Arius. The character which dis- 
tinguishes it, is that of life. The truths of Religion were not yet 
exhibited with that precision and system which distinguished 
them at a later period. The essential thing was the life which 
results from these truths, when properly received. They lived for 
Christ, in the midst of a world of idolatry ; they died for Christ, in 
the arena and on the funeral pile, and without much discussing 
the nature of his person, or disputing about his work. Christiani- 
ty was content to exist, and to know and profess that it existed, 
without enunciating and classifying all the parts in which that 
existence consisted. Just as a man is satisfied for a long time to 
have and enjoy being, without studying and explaining in what 
that being consists. 

Certain Rationalistic Doctors strangely infer from this character 
of the primitive form of Christianity, that the Christian truths did 
not then exist, and that because there was no dogmatism, there 
were therefore no doctrines. But to reason thus, is to reason as 
strangely and falsely as would that inexperienced observer, who 
should maintain that the essential parts of a human being did not 
exist until the man had made a precise and rational analysis of 
them. 

It results from this characteristic also, that the controversies of 
this period turn very little upon dogmas. The differences are in 



204 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

tendencies rather than doctrines. We shall meet with families pre- 
senting different aspects, rather than sects maintaining different 
doctrines. Let us trace these families a little, before proceeding 
to notice the doctrines which they all agreed to proclaim. 

To the inspiration of the Apostles succeeded the simple Chris- 
tianity of the Apostolic Fathers. It would seem that the ordinary 
course of nature had in this case been reversed, and that the in- 
genuousness and simplicity of infancy had followed the strength 
and maturity of the full-grown man. The Church, under the 
instruction of her Ignatius, her Polycarp, and many other faithful 
disciples, lived under the great idea of the speedy return of Jesus 
Christ : andbehold the summary of her faith ! " A new creation must 
be accomplished in humanity, before the arrival of that solemn day." 
" There are," says Barnabas, " three constitutions, or three economies 
of the Lord ; — the hope of life (the Old Testament), and the commence- 
ment of life (the New Testament), and the consummation of life (the 
Kingdom of heaven)." 

But by little and little this direction towards the heavens seems 
to decline in the Church. A generation appears, which does not 
so deeply penetrate the spirit of Jesus Christ. They gather curi- 
ous traditions concerning this terrestrial appearing of Christ. 
Some carnal Jews, who are still expecting a Messiah altogether 
human, brought in the grossest views under a Christian name. It 
seemed as if the Church was fatigued with her exalted flight and 
was beginning to seek the earth. Let us not be astonished at this. 
One always experiences languor and drowsiness after long watch- 
ing and care. 

But there now appeared on the limits of Christianity, and al- 
most beyond it, a tendency directly the opposite of this. Oriental 
philosophy attempts to unite itself with the Religion of Jesus. It 
seeks to take aw T ay from Religion its practical character, and to 
convert it into systems, which lose themselves in the clouds. 
Gnosticism substituted for a salutary faith, a fantastic cosmogony, 
by means of which it proposed to explain that which is inexplica- 
ble, and to cultivate a theosophy, which would procure for man 
on earth the sublime contemplations of Heaven. The West recoils 
before these adventurous vagaries of the East. In Proconsular 
Africa, and among the Gauls, the Tertullians and the lrenceuses 
arise. These offer a Christianity simple, positive, historical — and 
propose to men that faith wiiich nourishes alike the little and the 
great. Regarding philosophy as the source of Gnosticism, they 
begin to view with distrust the wisdom and scientific culture of 
the Greeks. 

But this exclusive simplicity has also its dangers. The cultivat- 
ed Pagans, not finding in the Christianity offered them, anything 
which responds to their intellectual taste, remain in the worship 
of their false Gods, or precipitately cast themselves into the adven- 
turous systems of the Gnostics. Alexandria — situated on the bor- 
ders of the Nile, between the East and West— remarks this : Alex- 
andria, the grand mart of the Sciences — where the gospel is said 
to have been carried by the Apostle Mark — undertakes to medi- 



THE VOICE OP THE CHURCH. 205 

ate between these'two tendencies of man, into which the world 
was divided. Pantaenus, Clement, and Origen, found a Christian 
Science, and in that approach the East ; but they found it on 
the Scriptures, and in that are nearer to the West : — \yv<*<ns faqQivri — 
true Science.) Alas, it was not wholly so : and these Doctors, al- 
though they did not abandon the fundamental principles of Chris- 
tianity, incorporated in their system the insidious germs of the two 
great heresies, which have since troubled a subsequent epoch and 
all the epochs.* 

h The School of Alexandria, by little and little, supplanted Gnosti- 
cism. But against that, in turn, are directed the arms of the severe 
and practical School of the west. A contest of a remarkable char- 
acter arises between these two churches, or Schools rather, in the 
third century. But the opposite tendencies seem to balance each 
other, and thus contribute to the prosperity of Religion. Alexan- 
dria originates a Theological spirit in the church. She begins to 
systematize, to elucidate her doctrines. She prevents a gross 
Anthropomorphism from mingling with the celestial doctrines of Jesus 
Christ. The West is always bringing back to the simple and lite- 
ral word of Scripture. It calls to mind constantly, that Christianity 
is a thing to be felt, proved in the heart, and exhibited in the life. 
It prevents the changing of these positive and salutary doctrines for 
vain and fantastic speculations. 

Such, Gentlemen, are some of the successive phases of our 
primitive form of Christianity. But in the midst of all a spirit of 
life still animates the Church. It is the age of her youth. These 
Christians, delivered from the sins of Paganism, feel the transform- 
ing influence of the gospel, with more energy, from being able to 
compare what it has made them, and what they were before. 
This conflict with the world reminds them constantly of their voca- 
tion as soldiers of Jesus Christ. Everything in the Church now 
lives — everything moves. She aspires to the skies ; she seems half- 
way ascended ; and although the age of gold must be reserved for 
" the new heaven and the new earth," which she is expecting, 
the Christian Church presents, in these days of her youth and life, 
traits of beauty, that are absolutely celestial. 

And what are the doctrines, which are professed by this new 
people, which the breath of the Almighty has created in the earth I 
They recognize one living and true God. They worship in God, 
not only the principle of all things (The Father), but the Redeemer 
also (The Son), and the sanctifier of fallen humanity (The Holy 
Spirit). They believed that the same God, who created man in 
righteousness, has redeemed him from sin, and does not cease to 
sanctify him until he comes to everlasting life. They knew no- 
thing of the strange error, by which some would rob God of the 
work and glory of Redemption, by giving it to a creature. 

The idea of a Trinity in the Godhead discovers itself from the 
very beginning of the primitive epoch, and never ceases to be pro- 
claimed, in a manner the most distinct. How does the voice of 
these early soldiers of the Cross confound the bold pretensions of 
modern times ! Hear it : Clement of Rome, a disciple of Paul* 

* Arianism and Peiagianism, 



206 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

renders glory to God in the following profession, — " One God, one 
Christ, one Spirit of Grace :" while Poly carp, a disciple of John, 
dying in the midst of the flames, ascribes eternal glory " to the 
Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." 

Justin Martyr, a converted sage, who, in the time of the Anto- 
nines, poured out his blood for the cause of Christ, proclaims, 
" a unity in Trinity." — Theoprtlus, Bishop of Antioch, about the 
same time, and in a manner still more explicit, professes " The 
Holy Trinity." 

A little afterwards, we find Tertullian, a lawyer of Africa, now 
become a pastor of God's flock, proclaiming " a Trinity of one 
Divine Being, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit !" and in 
another place — " Let us guard well the sacrament of our econo- 
my, * a unity in Trinity,' recognizing three, the Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost. — One in substance, one in estate, and one in 
power, became one God."* 

And let us hear a Bishop of a city near our own, a city trampled 
by the fury of Christ's enemies in his day, and by other furies in 
our own — let us hear Trenjeus, of Lyons, who had left the enlight- 
ened shores of Asia to bear the glad tidings of salvation to the 
barbarous Gauls — how does he defend the great doctrine of God 
manifest in the flesh ! (i Christ," says he, " united in himself God and 
man : if man had not vanquished the enemy of man (i. e. the 
Devil), he had not been properly vanquished : but, on the other 
hand, if God had not wrought salvation, we could never have 
been assured of possessing it." 

We have thus passed, as yet, only some few scores of years, 
from the death of the Apostles, and we have found proclaimed by 
so many illustrious Doctors, this doctrine of Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, a doctrine of which Christ designed to establish a 
perpetual monument in the Church by the institution of Bap- 
tism. The first of all the Church's Teachers defend this most 
consoling doctrine of God become Man. The further we advance, 
the more do these testimonies increase : throughout, is most deep- 
ly engraven, both in the sentiments and worship of God's people, 
the eternal Divinity of the Son of God. Even one of the wisest of 
the Heathen sages could say of them, " These Christians meet to- 
gether, to sing hymns to Christ, as being God." — But do we inquire 
now, what these Christians of the primitive epoch believed con- 
cerning man ? They did not imagine, with certain Pagans and cer- 
tain modern Doctors, that all evil proceeds from natural organiza- 
tion in man, and that this evil is not in opposition to the holiness 

of God ! Their sentiment was, that the first man, having, by 

disobedience, separated his will from the will of God, human na- 
ture has been abandoned to itself, and thus separated from God, 
has fallen under the dominion of evil. 

Let us approach, for proof, the college of the Apostles : let us 

* Note by the Translator. — The original authorities are referred to, and 
printed in full, in the notes to Dr. Merle's pamphlet; but it has not been 
deemed necessary to insert them here. 



THE VOICE OP THE CHURCH. 207 

interrogate those who either surrounded or succeeded them. Bar- 
nabas, the companion of Paul, has these words : " Before we be- 
lieved, the habitation of our hearts was full of corruption and sin ; 
filled with idolatry, and a dwelling-place of demons." Justin, 
who had sought in vain, in all philosophy, a key to the history of 
man, finds it, at length, in the fall of Adam, effected by the seduc- 
tions of Satan concealed in the form of a serpent. (See his Dia- 
logue with Trypho, p. 306.) 

The first man, according to the simple and practical Irenceus, is 
"like the case of one who, being incarcerated, propagates a race 
in prison." The profound Tertullian has already called the cor- 
ruption of human nature " original sin." ( Vitium Originis.) " The 
first man," says he, '• infected the species descending from him, 
and rendered them r partakers of his condemnation." Cyprian, 
Bishop of Carthage, understands the origin of sin in the same way. 
" The infant, at birth, has no sin," says he, " unless it be, in that 
it is descended, according to the flesh, from Adam, and has, by 
its birth," contracted the contagion of death." 

And now, if we betake ourselves to the school of Alexandria 
and think to hear something more flattering to our pride from these 
philosophical Theologians, even there we shall learn from Origen, 
that " Adam turned from the straight way of Paradise, to take the 
evil ways of mortal life." In consequence, all those who, de- 
scending from him, have come into the world, are also turned 
out of the way, and become, like him, unprofitable." " Every 
man is corrupted in his father and in his mother : Jesus Christ 
alone was born pure " " It is impossible that man, since his 
fall, should regard God ; he must be subject, at first, to the do- 
minion of sin." 

Thus Egypt, as well as Gaul, and Africa, with Asia, alike re- 
cognize man as a being fallen and impure. 

And how is this fallen and defiled being to be reconciled to a 
holy God ? What thought the Christians of this primitive epoch, 
of the means by which God saves ? Let us interrogate those 
again who surrounded the Apostles. They will teach us those 
sacred doctrines of Grace, which were more fully explained at a 
later period. " The Son of God has suffered," says Barnabas, <c that 
his sufferings might give us life. He offered in sacrifice for us, 
the vessel of his spirit (i e. his body)" Again, " Having learned 
to hope in the name of Christ, and having received the remission 
of sins, we are become new men, and new -created'' Hernias — the 
same perhaps of whom Paul speaks — (Rom. xvi. 14) — says : 
" Before man receives the name of a child of God, he is condemn- 
ed to death ; but when this seal is applied, he is delivered from 
death and passes into life." " The law of God," says Justin, 
" pronounced a curse upon man, inasmuch as he could not fulfil 
it in all its extent. (See Deut. xvii. 26.) But Christ has delivered 
us from this curse, in bearing it on our behalf." Do we speak 
differently at the present day ? 

Irenceus sees in circumcision " a type of the saving blood of 
Christ, and in the tree of life, a type of the cross of Christ." 



208 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

Elsewhere he declares " that man must no longer seek to purify 
himself by sacrifices, but by Christ's blood and his death." The 
Paschal Lamb, according to him, foreshadowed Christ, "who 
saves those that believe in him, by the sprinkling of his blood ;" 
and the two goats — of which the one was sent away into the 
wilderness, and the other sacrificed to God — were a representation 
of the two-fold coming of Christ, the one for death, and the 
other for glory. He opposes to the disobedience of Adam, the 
obedience of Christ. " Christ reconciles the Father to us," says 
he, " in replacing, by his obedience, the disobedience of the first 
man f and, pursuing his comparison of a man cast into prison by 
sin, and into captivity to the Devil, declares that " Christ has paid 
the ransom necessary for deliverance from this captivity." 

In the same way does Origen represent the death of Christ as 
" that power which delivers man from sin." Indeed, the entire 
Church regards the sufferings of the Lamb of God as the means 
by which the way to the Father has been re-opened to the children 
of men. It is faith which renders man a partaker of this deliver- 
ance, ^and this communicates, at the same time, a divine life. 
" Called by the grace of God," says Clement of Rome, " we are 
justified — not by ourselves, not by our wisdom or goodness, or 
any works which we have wrought in the sanctity of our hearts ; 
but by faith, according to which a sovereign God has justified 
men in all time. Do we live at ease, then, on that account ? Do 
we cease to do good works ? Far from it. We do good works 
with joy — even as God for ever works, and rejoices in his activity." 

Behold, then, this holy Church of the primitive epoch. Hear 
how she speaks to us from the bosom of her griefs, and, as it 
were, from the height of the scaffolds where she suffered. She 
confesses her miseries, and embracing the knees of Jesus, calls 
him her " Saviour and her God." Who can misunderstand the 
profound accents of her sincere piety ? How pitiable the occupa- 
tion of those who would despoil her of these w 7 hite robes, and 
clothe her with the tattered garments of a modern Infidelity ! 
But this profane effort is s in the meantime, a homage rendered to 
the Church — the first Unitarians had recourse to the same ex- 
pedient. 

Vain are all these devices ; for w T hoever will listen, shall always 
hear the voice of the primitive Church proclaiming, with one 
accord, these unchangeable truths. 

II. THE FORM OF DOGMA. 

In our view of the primitive epoch of the Church — although 
we have gathered only here and there a sheaf from the vast har- 
vest — we have already extended ourselves beyond the proper 
limits of this discourse. We have done so, because it is in this 
age alone that our adversaries are wont to hazard the controversy. 
They despair of other periods ; and they make loud and violent 
complaints, if the faith, which they cannot but acknowledge, is 
to be found in them. We will not, therefore, greatly strive for a 



THE VOICE OP THE CHURCH. 209 

field, on which our foes proclaim in advance that they are van- 
quished and must abandon. 

This epoch opens as the era of great Doctors, great truths, and 
great heresies. It was the period in which Christian Theology— 
of which the elements had been preparing in a preceding epoch 
— was carried, by illustrious men of God, to its highest point of 
elevation. It was the era of Athanasius, of Hilary, of Gregory, of 
Basil, of Ambrose, of Augustin, and of Chrysostom ; the time of lofty 
spirits; the age mature of the Church. The last murders of the 
confessors of Christ have ceased — the memorable Council of Nice 
has been held — the epoch of Life is finished — the form of Dogma 
begins. Not that there was no longer any life in the Church ; but 
that the characteristic of dogma is that which now prevails. Now 
man loves to have distinct ideas of what he believes ; to method- 
ize ; to render reasons. The Church, no longer obliged to struggle 
with persecution from without, has more room to occupy herself 
with that which is within. She arranges the faith which she has 
long possessed. 

The different tendencies of a former age, in the meantime, de- 
velop e more and more ; and, by a remarkable transformation, 
arrange themselves in opposing doctrines — just as the dispositions 
of youth, at first vague and indeterminate, are resolved into dis- 
tinct characteristics, in the mature man. The two great heresies 
appear, conducted by Arius and Pelagius ; but even these heresies 
became the means which God uses for the better establishment of 
the truth. The doctrines so clearly defined by the Church of this 
period will now be faithfully transmitted. They will be preserv- 
ed and perpetuated amidst all the troubled barbarism of succeed- 
ing times. The Dogmatic form shall be, by divine grace, the 
shield of these truths in days of coming struggle and revolution, 
and the very hammer to break their way into minds of hardened 
barbarism. But while, in order to recognize truth more distinctly, 
they divide it into many minutiae, it must be confessed they some- 
times seem to Jose sight of the essence — the life itself. 

The East and West preserve, in the meantime, their peculiar 
characteristics. The East remains the country of lofty specula- 
tions — the West, that of practical questions. The East discourses 
concerning God — the West occupies itself more with man. The 
East produces an Athanasius — the West a Pelagius and an Augus- 
tin. But both in the one country and in the other, the truth is 
assailed, and obtains distinguished victories. Having passed the 
time of its youth, the Christian doctrine, like the just man, is put 
to trial, but was not to prove a second fall. It will resist seduc- 
tion ; it will remain firm. 

The doctrine concerning God was first expounded now, and with 
great clearness ; because it was the first upon which man had 
dared to lay a menacing hand. Athanasius, a distinguished Doctor 
of Alexandria, discovers, in the profound mystery of human re- 
demption, the necessity of the eternal Divinity of the Redeemer. 
Earth has no Saviour, if its Saviour be not God. If Athanasius con- 
secrates his life, and submits to so many exiles, to defend the 



210 THE VOICE OP THE CHURCH. 

identity of substance between the Father and the Son, it is not that 
he attaches so great value to a dialectic subtlety ; no, he combats 
for the essence of Christianity itself, and for the salvation of souls. 
Christianity has for its object to re-establish man in communication 
with God. In order to this, there must be a Mediator. " But," 
said Athanasius, " if the Son of God be different in essence from 
God, then would there be need of another Mediator, to unite him 
with God. He alone can establish a real communication between 
God and his creatures, who has no need of a mediation for him- 
self — but who is himself a part of the Divine essence. Now such 
is the Son of God. Were he a creature — be it the most excellent 
and exalted — he would, in interposing between God and man, in- 
stead of uniting, separate them one from another." (Athan. Ora- 
tio contra Avian.) 

But let us hear the entire Church in the Symbols of her faith. 
" This is the faith universal," says she, "that we worship one 
God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity — without confounding the 
Persons or dividing the Substance: for the person of the Father is 
one : that of the Son, another, and that of the Holy Spirit, ano- 
ther. But the Father, Son, and Spirit, are one same Divinity — one 
equal Glory — one co- eternal Majesty. Such as is the Father, such 
is the Son, and such the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated — the 
Son is uncreated — the Spirit is uncreated : the Father is God — the 
Son is God — the Spirit is God; but at the same time there are not 
three Gods, but one God. And the true faith is : — We believe and 
confess that our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and 
man : God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the 
world began ; and man, of the substance of the mother, born in 
time — perfect God and perfect man — equal to the Father accord- 
ing to his Divinity — less than the Father according to humanity." 
(Atkanasian Creed.) 

A controversy of sixty years (from 320 to 381) was necessary to 
determine, explain, and defend this doctrine of the Divinity of 
Christ. 

But new combats now commenced to determine another dogma. 
A little after Athanasius and those who followed with him, appear- 
ed another Teacher in the Church who seemed to have received 
a commission to explain and defend the true doctrine concerning 
Man. This was Augustin. Already, indeed, had the truth on this 
subject been believed and confessed by those who had gone before 
'him. " By the sin of one Adam," says Hilary of Poictiers, " all the 
human race has sinned." " We have all sinned in the first man," 
says Ambrose. " In him human nature has sinned." But it was 
when the great Doctor of the West arose ; he under whose influ- 
ence were to be found, during many ages, all who should have 
clear ideas of truth; it was when Augustin appeared, that all the 
depths of human impotency were developed. 

This man had abandoned Manicheism, then Platonism — not find- 
ing in the one or the other that inward peace which he needed in 
the midst of life's tempests — and he seized with avidity on the 
Gospel, which dissipated his doubts, consoled his heart, and scat- 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 211 

tered light in all his ways. In these combats with sin and a vain 
philosophy, he had learned to recognize in himself oil the corrup- 
tion of the human heart ; and here is the chord which henceforth 
vibrates in all his instructions. Pursued at once by the sublime 
ideal of sanctity, and by all the seductions of sensuality, he sees 
opened, by the shock of these conflicting elements, the deep pro- 
fundities of his own heart — even as the tempests of the ocean will 
sometimes uncover the depths of the abyss. To perfect his op- 
portunities, he now comes in contact with a man, who, without 
ideal, is placed in easy and ordinary circumstances of life, and 
who has formed thence, the most preposterous opinions of u the 
morality of human nature. 

Augustin enters the lists with Pelagius. But this is not a con- 
troversy between two men alone : it lies between principles — two 
leading tendencies of the human mind, which have appeared in 
all ages. Augustin sees the first man estranging himself from 
God : from this estrangement proceeds sin, and from this, the 
moral disorder of all humanity. Human nature, according to him, 
is a mass of ruin (Massa perditionis). The consequence, as well 
as the punishment of sin, in all his descendants, is the obligation 
to sin also (Obligatio peccati). Man has lost his liberty, and his 
power to do any good work. He can no more have anything, 
except as God is pleased to give it to him. If some come to have 
the faith of the Gospel, while others do not — the reason cannot be 
found in man ; since all are equally incapable of any good : it is 
to be found in special act of God alone — in the secret counsels of 
the Almighty — in an election of grace. After a controversy 1 ^ 
nearly thirty years — carried on in Africa, in Italy, and in Middle 
Gaul—the truth triumphs, and the doctrine of the total inability of 
man remains in the Church. 

In the same spirit was the doctrine of grace explained and en- 
forced by these great minds ; and this brings us to the third point, 
which is to be examined. Already had it been said by the excel- 
lent Hilary: "Redemption is given gratuitously — not according 
to a the merit of works, but according to the will of the giver— 
the choice of Him who redeems us." — " In this consists the grace 
of God — says Augustin — that He justifies, not by our righteousness, 
but by his own." But he insists above all, that the idea of grace 
excludes all merit, and all natural disposition in man to receive 
salvation. God is the Alpha and Omega with him — the beginning 
and the end of our salvation. " That which God begins by operat- 
ing — says he — He ends by co-operating : Commencing — He ope- 
rates, that we might be willing — and to finish, he now co-ope- 
rates with those who have the will : — " He that glorieth let him glory 
in the Lord." 

Thus is the Christian science greatly advanced in this era. 
The doctrines of God, of man, of salvation, which the teachers of 
the first period had indeed seen in the Scriptures, are now sound- 
ed with greater precision and more profound research. Under 
the influence of the Spirit of God, Theology advances ; for there 
is, gentlemen, such a thing as progress, even in Theology. What 



212 THE VOICE OP THE CHURCH. 

shall we say then of those, who, even at this day, would persuade 
us not only to abandon this advance, but to return to those errors 
which the Church has long since rejected ? " Leaving the princi- 
ples of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection." 

III. — THE SCHOLASTIC FORM. 

A new form succeeds to that which has supplanted the primi- 
tive. After ages of darkness, the East beheld a great intellectual 
movement in the eleventh century. This form has been called the 
Scholastic from Schola — the School. The School seeks to separate 
itself from the Church, which hath hitherto been supreme — to ob- 
tain action and authority, independent of the hierarchy. Certain 
liberal-minded men, who were in the beginning at least neither 
monks nor ecclesiastics, determined to establish schools altogether 
distinct from those which had hitherto existed. From these 
schools soon arises the University of Paris, the mother of Scholas- 
tic Philosophy. The general character of the scholastic form, 
then, is the Spirit of the. Schools, we may say, of theUniversity, or of 
Science. To apply philosophy to Christianity ; to reduce Christian 
doctrines to systems ; to show their connections, their internal 
proofs, and to measure them not only by the heart, but by the un- 
derstanding ; such is the tendency of the Scholastic form of Reli- 
gion : so that if the first era may be called the form of life, and 
the second that of doctrines — the third is that of system. There is 
yet life — there are yet doctrines ; but that which prevails is the 
systematic. It was then that each Doctor published his system — 
his Summa Theologice. It was the age advanced of the Church, 
which naturally succeeded to its youth and manhood. It is the 
age which loves to arrange what it had before collected. It medi- 
tates : it has little of impulse, but more of reflection. There were 
indeed men of great force in this middle era ; but the prevailing 
disposition was to reflection and system. 

Historical studies there were yet none : the exegetical were no 
more as esteemed ; and yet the human mind was awaking with 
great force all over Europe. It needed a guide to direct it, and 
this guide was found in Dialectic Philosophy : and as Theology 
was the science of the age, the human mind adventured upon this 
field, under the auspices of their new leader. This tendency of 
the scholastic might lead to rationalism — to infidelity; but the 
good doctors of the age opposed to these the holy truths of The- 
ology " The Christian (says Anselm, the father of Scholastic The- 
ology) should come to understanding through faith, and not to faith 
through understanding. I seek not to comprehend, in order to 
believe; I believe, that I may comprehend." "And I believe 
even, because, if I did not believe, I should not comprehend. " 
Immediately Abelard and his school avail themselves of the scho- 
lastic principle, and become the advocates of free examination. 
They wish first to comprehend, and then to believe. " Faith, say 
they, established by examination, is much more solid. It is ne- 
cessary to meet the enemies of the Gospel on their own ground : 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 213 

if we are not to discuss, we must believe everything, the false as 
well as the true." 

In the meantime, whatever may have been the danger of these 
tendencies, and whatever the reproaches of the Church, we can- 
not accuse these doctors with having abandoned any doctrine of 
the Christian faith. We cannot, however, wholly absolve them. 
Scholasticism often disfigured Christian truth. Its tendencies and 
the times in which it appeared, necessarily led to this. Human 
reason never ventures without danger on those great truths which 
surpass created intelligence. The school of the middle ages, like 
that of Alexandria before, shook the foundations of the Christian 
system, in attempting to establish them. It had its great minds, 
and under its influence there was progress — I will not say of Re- 
ligion, but of science, of Theology. The great men, who were 
the lights of these times, communicated much instruction to the 
scholars, who filled their schools, and who followed them by 
thousands, and into the descent, if necessary, where chairs of doc- 
trine were established. 

It has become common, with certain unbelievers, to brand 
Christian orthodoxy as an invention of the middle ages. This trite 
accusation does too much honor to the age in question : The 
Christian doctrine already existed. But let us interrogate some 
of the men of this age. 

For their exposition of the doctrine of Salvation, let u,s hear An- 
selm, the most influential perhaps of all the Philosophical Theolo- 
gians — Anselm of Canterbury, the second Augustin of the Latin 
Church, who knew so well how to unite the researches of Philo- 
sophy with the purity of the Christian faith. The system of Re- 
demption is developed by him, in a manner to satisfy at once the 
understanding and the heart. " All rational creatures," says he, 
" are under obligation to submit their wills to the will of the great 
Creator. This law, the first man transgressed, and thus destroyed 
the harmony of moral order. Now the law of eternal righteous- 
ness demands, either that the human race should be punished, or 
that by some satisfaction, proceeding from humanity, that order 
should be restored. Without this, it would be altogether incon- 
sistent that polluted man should hold communion with happy 
spirits. But man could not, of himself, accomplish this satisfac- 
tion. As human nature had been corrupted by one, so by one 
ought the satisfaction to be made. 

" He, who should effect this, must be some being above creatures. 
He must be God himself; and in the meantime he must be human 
also, to the end that the satisfaction may be applicable to human- 
ity. This could be none other, then, than God-man, the Mediator. 
This God-man must deliver himself up to death voluntarily, since 
he was not, as God, subject, to death : and he must exhibit perfect 
obedience in the midst of the greatest sorrows. God would then 
owe to Christ a recompense; but Christ, as God, could need no 
recompense : he could therefore transfer his merits to the world, 
and demand for his reward the salvation of believers. " Thus 
speaks Anselm in his Treatise — Sur JDeus homo. 



214 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

But what is remarkable — considering the common opinion form- 
ed of these men — is, that they insist much on the sanctifying influ- 
ence of faith. " The sufferings of Christ," says Peter Lambord, the 
illustrious Master of Sentences — " deliver us from sin ; for this im- 
mense sacrifice of divine love inspires us with love for God, and 
this love works our sanctification." " The just man, who lives 
by faith," says Robert Pulley n 9 " is already sanctified within, and 
exhibits good works as signs of his faith and sanctification : faith 
first produces righteousness of heart, and righteousness of heart 
produces good works." Alexander de Hales, who was called the 
irrefragable doctor, speaks thus : " Man in his original state never 
opposed himself to God. He then had need only of formative 
grace ; but now that there is something in him opposite to God, 
and which cannot be removed except by the power of God, man 
needs transformative grace" 

There are undoubtedly some differences between these great 
men, but these differences only show how firmly established they 
were in the essential truths of Salvation. Anselm, for instance, 
Thomas Aquinas, and others supposed that the sacrifice of Christ 
effected the salvation of man, in virtue of an intrinsic value (ex 
insito valore) ; while many other Scholastics, and Duns Scott in 
particular, contended that it was owing solely to the design and 
counsel of God. This was the difference ; while all proclaimed 
that a man was a lost being, and saved alone by the death of the 
God-man Jesus Christ. 

IV. THE FORM OF THE REFORMATION. 

Such is the testimony of these last ages, to say nothing of the 
WicJcliffs and the Waldos, the forerunners of that great movement, 
which now began to appear in the world. The Church had had 
its youth, full of life and vigor, its manhood mature with strength 
and clearness, and its ripe age of reason and of system. But af- 
ter the period of the schools the age of rationalism was past. 
Now the hierarchy sought to embrace all within its iron grasp : 
life, dogma, system, lay as under a funeral stone, and all the no- 
ble tendencies of the Church must die. Vain effort! She burst 
these bands of death, rolled back the stone of the Sepulchre, and 
came forth, a dead man restored to life ! Let us salute her, under 
this fourth form, the form of the Reformation. 

If the three preceding forms were those of life, of doctrines, of 
system, what shall be the characteristic of this ? Gentlemen, the 
Reformation was the re-establishment of former things. But this 
re-establishment will not have respect to any one of the preced- 
ing forms exclusively ; it shall be the re-uniting of the whole. 
Of these, which had before existed only in separate forms, it will 
now form an admirable Triology. Behold, our fourth form, an 
epoch of the Church. The Reformation takes the form of sys- 
tem, carries that back to dogma, and then crowns all with the 
characteristic of life. It unites the three wisdoms of preceding 
ages 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 215 

She commenced with the life. Luther proved, through divine 
grace, the living influence of Christianity, as no preceding Doctor, 
perhaps, had ever felt it before. The Reformation sprang living 
from his own heart, where God himself had placed it. The era 
which passed during the time of the teacher of Wittemburgh, 
was, so to speak, all life. This is so true that the admirable work 
published by Melancthon (the Theologian of the Reformation), we 
speak now of the first edition of his Loci Communes — omits the 
doctrine of the essence of God and the Trinity. Not that he con- 
sidered these doctrines unimportant ; they are, on the contrary, 
the basis of his system ; but because, in his own words, " it is 
more profitable to adore these mysteries, than deeply attempt to 
sound them." 

But even here you will find that Christian life is built on Chris- 
tian doctrine : and then accordingly, in the second period of the 
Reformation (that which produced the confession of Augsburgh, 
drawn up by Melancthon himself), these doctrines are presented, 
defined, and illustrated in all their force. The Trinity, total de- 
pravity, and above all, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, 
are there explained with a clearness and force scarce equalled in 
the epoch of dogmatism itself. You find system, also, in the har- 
monious distribution of all the doctrines of Christianity ; and this 
characteristic appears above all in the third period of the Re- 
formation, under the influence of Melancthon of Germany, and 
Calvin of Geneva. The Christian Institutes of our Reformer 
will remain for ages one of the most beautiful monuments of the 
Christianity of system. 

Would you know how strong is the testimony of this epoch to 
the immutable truths of the Gospel, hear the great Doctor of Wit- 
temburgh on the Divinity of Christ. " If Christ," says he, " be not 
the true and essential God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and 
the creator of all creatures — we are lost: for of what avail were the 
sufferings and death of Christ, if he were only man like you and 
I? He could not, in that case, conquer Satan, sin, and death. We 
need a Saviour who is truly God over all : the conqueror of sin 
and death, of Satan and hell. In vain do the Arians tell us he is 
the most exalted of creatures. They wish in this way to screen 
their shameful error, that the people may not perceive it ; but if 
we corrupt the Doctrine of Christ in the least degree, irreparable 
mischief is done. If you take away his proper Divinity, there is 
no deliverance for us from the wrath to come." 

And what is the doctrine of the Reformation concerning man ? 
It reduces to powder the subtleties of the Scholastics on this point, 
and presents the truth with an admirable clearness and simplicity. 
Luther, even before the publication of his famous Theses on In- 
dulgences, published others concerning man ; and here are some 
of the great truths, which, even at the morning of the Reformation, 
he declares himself ready to defend. 

" That man has become an evil tree, and can neither will nor do 
anything but evil." 

" On the part of man, there is nothing preceding grace but im- 
potency and rebellion." 



216 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

" There is no moral virtue without pride, or discontent (tristesse), 
that is, without sin." 

" He who is destitute of the grace of God sins continually, though 
he should not steal, kill, or commit adultery." 

But in what manner shall we speak, gentlemen, of the testimony 
which the Reformation gives to the doctrine of grace ? It was by 
this doctrine that it overturned entirely the foundations of Rome. 

The Reformation never suffers man to rest the hope of his salva- 
tion in anything done by himself or in himself. Christ is the only 
foundation: and faith, in his name, the only means of grace. 
Every other view leads either to pride or despair. Hear Luther : 
writing to his friend Sphanlein, he says, " Have you at length de- 
spaired of your own righteousness ? And do you rejoice and con- 
fide in the righteousness of Christ ? Learn, my brother, to know 
Christ and him crucified ; learn to despair of yourself and to sing 
this song, ' Jesus, my Lord, thou art my righteousness, and I thy 
sin : thou hast taken that which was mine, and given me that 
which belonged to thee : thou hast become that which thou wast 
not, and caused me to be what I was not myself.' " Works," says 
he, " on one occasion, are not taken into consideration, when jus- 
tification is the subject concerned. True faith, indeed, will never 
fail to produce good works, any more than the sun will fail to 
shine ; but after all, it is not our good works which dispose God 
to justify us." 

" Undoubtedly," says Melancthon, " renovation of heart must 
flow from faith ; but if you inquire after justification, turn your 
eyes from this renovation and hx. them on the promises — on Christ 
—knowing that we are justified only for the love of Christ, and not 
on account of our new nature. Faith justifies, not, as some sup- 
pose, because it is in us, as the root of a good tree ; but because 
it lays hold on Jesus Christ, for the love of whom we are rendered 
acceptable to God." " We offer nothing to God," says Calvin, 
" but by his grace, we are become, as it were, all pure without 
regard to our works." 

All the Reformers, while they differ on some points, are of one 
accord in this. In Germany, in Switzerland, in France, in Great 
Britain, in Italy even, and in Spain, they teach the doctrine of 
Justification by Faith alone. 

But why do I enlarge ? Have we not the Confessions of the Re- 
formers, and do not the adversaries of our faith, as well as its 
friends, agree that this was pre-eminently the doctrine of the 
Reformation ? 

Gentlemen ; there is yet another period — a fifth form, perhaps, 
now commencing for the Church ; — a form unknown, mysterious, 
and of which the characteristics cannot yet be very clearly 
defined. Of one thing, however, we may be confident : one thing 
the past teaches, and that is, that the same great verities which 
have formed the foundation hitherto, will be the essence of the 
form which is yet to come. The salutary doctrines which have 
yet governed the Church, will not relinquish her helm now. This 
precious vessel shall not be abandoned to perfidious and epheme- 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH, 217 

ral winds ; — to the heresies of Theodosius and Pelagius — of Arius 
and Socinus. Ce qui iti sera ! That which has been, will be. 

Further than this : the history of the past is a guarantee that the 
future shall re-unite all which was good in forms, that are now 
no more. God will not permit anything to be lost, which was 
once in his Church, and for his Church. And this leads me to 
glance at an error of some well-intentioned Christians, who speak 
of returning to primitive Christianity, without caring for what lies 
in the way from that to the present times. The Church could no 
more disengage itself from the influence of the different forms 
through which she has passed, than a tree could despoil itself of 
the different layers with which each returning spring has clothed 
it ; or the body of a full grown man get rid of the accretions of 
previous years. 

For us, gentlemen, we will not indeed turn our eyes wholty to 
the future ; but neither will we wholly reject the past. The past 
will be in the future. Life,|doctrines, system, all will be united, 
and perfectly, in the form which is yet to be. 

In the meantime there will undoubtedly be something to dis- 
tinguish this new form from that of the Reformation ; but who 
shall say what it will be ? I will venture to say thus much, — that 
perhaps the principal characteristic will be the missionary spirit — 
the carrying to all the race of men, and to every individual, that 
which the preceding forms have preserved and produced. Did 
not the period of the Reformation unite the isolated good of three 
preceding eras, to the end that the new period might stretch out 
its hand, laden with these riches, and scatter them abroad over 
all the earth ? Ought not these riches to become the property of 
all men, and in a manner they have not yet been ? But I refrain 
from these suggestions — covered as they are with a veil of deep 
obscurity. 

But one thing is certain and we ought to know it. We are, 
gentlemen, entering on a new era for science and for the Church : 
and ours is the generation which must give to this new era its 
first and most important impulse. There is much to do, and but 
few as yet to accomplish it. You, at least, my voice can reach. 
Destined, therefore, to open this new direction of piety and of 
science, form yourselves as scribes and teachers for the work. 
Understanding, that to conquer a strong infidelity will require a 
strong faith and extensive knowledge. Enrich yourselves with 
the past, to prepare for the future. Ye young men, who are yet 
to serve the Church of Him who has given his life for the sheep ; 
and ye who are already established over die flock, understand 
well what it is, which a sound Theology will require. Profit by 
the instructions of history. Let her carry you beyond the narrow 
bounds with which prejudice or locality may have surrounded 
you — and leave the dull track where servile spirits are willing to 
drag themselves along. Live — not alone with the passing moment, 
but with other ages. History invokes them ; history surrounds 
you with them, and makes you hear their grand and solemn testi- 
mony. 

10 



218 THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 

Will you reject the voice of all the Church, and of Jesus Christ 
himself, for the voice of a single teacher ? Will you despise that 
glory which comes from God, and seek for that which comes from 
the present world ? Pursue this wonderful chain, the first link of 
which is God himself, and which, forming itself through so many 
ages, has reached at length even unto us. Be unwilling to turn 
aside for some obscure heresy : be firm and faithful, should you find 
yourselves alone— alone hi the Church, alone in the world — a con- 
fessor and a martyr for " God manifest in the flesh." Be not dis- 
heartened, but comfort yourselves in reflecting that you have God 
for your witness, and the company of all those illustrious men, 
whose voice you have to-day heard. History shows that Christi- 
anity has, in all ages, acted with force upon the minds of men ; 
but shows at the same time, that it is by the same doctrines that 
this regenerating influence has been felt. The orthodox dogmas 
alone have had this power, whether on individuals or a people. 
All others have served only to amuse, and to ruin them. Never 
will you find life, where you do not truth. Are you willing then 
to be mere rhetoricians, and amused by high-sounding language ; 
or do you desire to be the benefactors of your race, and save them 
by the power and wisdom of God ? Attach yourselves, I pray 
you, to that which is saving— immutable — eternal : associate 
yourselves with a sacred host. Behold ; what mighty efforts are 
now making in Switzerland and in France, in Germany and Holland, 
in Great Britain and America, to restore to the world a sound 
Theology and establish the throne of truth.*" 

And thou, God most High : by that light which causeth to see 
light — illuminate our minds, and open the portals of that science, 
whose unsearchable treasures are concealed in Jesus Christ ! 






YOICE FROM ANTIQUITY 



TO THE 



MEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



PROLOGUE. 



BETWEEN THREE YOUNG MEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY- 



First Young Man. — Society is dissolving. Where is the link that once 
bound it together ? Is there any one sentiment that governs it % Yes, one 
— and that is selfishness. Selfishness resulting in despair; and despair 
often in suicide ! What can check this disease that is consuming us % 

J.— Faith. 

First Young Man. — Yes, faith. A noble sentiment, doubtless : but what 
faith ? Shall it be that of the Sergeant who blew out his brains, crying, I 
believe in Victor Hugo, or 

/.—Faith in God. 

First Young Man. — Does not everybody in France believe in God in one 
way or another ? And yet France is not cured. 

I. — Faith in God consists not only in believing that He is, but in believ- 
ing also what He says. When we have faith in any one, we believe his 
word ; now in France people do not believe what God has spoken. 

First Young Man. — I can easily know what Cousin, Hugo, Lamartine or 
Chateaubriand have said, for their works abound among us. But pray, 
where shall we find what God has spoken 1 

I. — In the Bible ; in the Book, the Book of nations, the Book of God. 

First Young Man. — The Bible ! Yes, I have heard of it, but must con- 
fess I have never read it and not even seen it. It is far from being gene- 
rally diffused, like the Meditations of Lamartine, or Beranger's Songs. It 
is scarcely spoken of in France. Is it much known in other countries ? 

L — The Book of God is translated into more than 150 languages ; it is 
scattered among all tribes and nations of man. There are languages in 
which it is the only written book. The savages of distant islands come in 
crowds to lie down for days and nights before the humble missionary 
dwelling where it is being printed in their own tongue, that they may be 
the first to bear it away in fragments, leaf by leaf: and already has it begun 
to circulate among the three or four hundred millions of the Celestial 
Empire. 

First Young Man. — It must be very ancient, to have travelled so far. 

I- — When the first of its writers composed his books, Greece knew not 
yet her letters. 



222 PROLOGUE. 

First Young Man.— But what has it been doing in the world 1 Has it 
produced effects comparable to those of the works of modern authors ? 

I— When the world was sinking into decay, in the time of the Roman 
Emperors, this Book triumphed over the corruption of the South, and 
created a new world. And when the Barbarians had threatened to stifle 
our Europe in its new birth, this Book triumphed over the barbarism of 
the North, and created modern society. It is able to save us for the third 
time — and, even now, is converting the ends of the earth to the knowledge 
of the true God. 

First Young Man. — Certainly if these things were known and understood, 
this Book would command more attention. 

X — It must be read ; it must be found in every school and in every 
cottage ; every Frenchman must own a Bible. 

Third Young Man. — My dear friends of the city, you have been talking 
this half hour about religion, and you have not mentioned either church, 
bishop, or curate. It is not so with us in the country. We have a great 
respect for what you imagine to be no longer in existence. Know then, that 
in France we still go to confession, and still believe in the priest who 
alone has the right to direct us. Now, sir, the Church forbids the people 
to read this Book, whose cause you so valiantly espouse; 

I. — How can the men of God prohibit the reading of the Word of God ? 

First Young Man. — What is that you say ? An advertisement of this 
book, which I read in a paper, announced that it was published under the 
auspices of the Archbishop of Paris. 

I. — The priests forbid the people to read the Holy Scriptures ! As well 
might the king's ministers prohibit Frenchmen from reading the charter 
which they are bound to observe. 

First Yowng Man. — Some ill-disposed minds would be ready to infer that 
the priests have special reasons for concealing the contents of that Book. 

Third Young Man. — No matter : the Church is always the same. What 
the holy Fathers enjoined from the earliest ages, she enjoins still, despite 
the pretensions or the ridicule of the present generation. We ought to sub- 
mit to what has been acknowledged from all antiquity to be true. 

I. — But where do you find that the Church wishes to keep for her own 
use, the treasure which was entrusted to her to distribute generously to 
all? 

Third Young Man. — If the early Fathers of the Church had wished us to 
read it, why is it not given to us % 

First Young Man. — If this book is what you say it is, why has there been 
no appeal made to the present generation, to induce them to read it ? 

I. — {To the first.) — You, on the one side, demand an appeal to the men 
of our day. {To the third.) And you, on the other, desire to hear the voice 
of the ancients. If such an appeal and such a voice are heard, promise me 
one thing. 

First Young Man. — What? 

I. — Serious attention. 

Both. — We promise. 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 



Verbum aittem Domini manet sternum, — St. Peter. ! 



I. 

Oh, Earth ! earth ! earth ! hear the voice of the Almighty ! God 
has spoken. He who in the beginning made the heavens and 
the earth, has caused his voice to be heard among men. His 
voice is powerful as the whirlwind that cleaves the mountains 
asunder, and rends the rocks from their base. 

His voice is gentle and consoling ; it penetrates the depths of 
the heart, and makes sunshine there. Oh man ! thy Creator, thy 
Father, thy Friend, thy Saviour, thy God has spoken here below, 
and thou hast paid no regard to Him. 

Thou hast listened to the voice of thy gay companions, to their 
tales, their jests, and their boisterous merriment, but thou hast 
given no attention to the words of thy God. 

Thou hast listened to the voice of seducers, of those whose 
words were flattering, whose lips drop as an honey -comb while 
the poison of asps was concealed beneath ; — of those who said, 
" Come with us" — but whose feet go down to death, and their 
steps take hold on hell ; and still thou hast regarded not the mes- 
sage of thy God. 

Thou hast listened in the haunts of business to the voice of 
those who buy, and those who sell, to the voice of stewards and 
of the servants of mammon — to the voice of thine own heart, 
which repeated evermore, " Give ! Give !" — and yet thou hast 
had no ear for the words of thy God ! 

Thou hast listened to the voice of the courier as he swept by 
thee with the words, " a wonderful event has just transpired" — 
to the voice of friends who answer thy eager question, " what 
news to-day ?" — to the voice of those who relate to thee the de- 
bates of statesmen, or the battles of soldiers — and yet thou hast 
disregarded the voice of thy God. All — all could gain attention 
from thee except thy Creator and Sovereign. 

s ii ; 

Oh Earth ! earth ! earth ! hear the voice of the Almightv 
Could He forget thee who has given thee life? Could He who 



224 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

called thee into existence, fail to show thee the path of happi- 
ness ? Must not He who formed thee, understand thee perfectly, 
and know certainly what is best for thee ? Oh man ! where wilt 
thou find a protector more powerful — a friend more tender than 
thy Creator, and thy God ? To whom oughtest thou to listen if 
not to Him ? 

It was early spring time ; all was calm. The silver moonlight 
streamed into a spacious hall, lately resounding with the voice of 
song and laughter ; graceful forms had glided through the dance 
there, and sounds of deep melody had floated on the evening air. 
But the gay groups had separated ; the silence of night had suc- 
ceeded to the confused murmur of the festival; and thought 
awoke. The hearts of some among them said, " This is not hap- 
piness ; we need something beyond this. The period of our life 
is as nothing in God's sight. There is a higher, an eternal happi- 
ness. Who will give it to us ; who will show us the way to it ?" 
And I seemed to hear a voice from Heaven answering — The 
words of your God ! Oh sons and daughters of men ! behold 
the guide to that better land — read them. 

It was summer ; All was activity in city and field. The mer- 
chant was busy at his counting-house, the workman in his shop, 
the mother in her household, the soldier at his post, the laborer 
in his field. 

There was a murmur like the humming of insects, in the heat 
of the day, but vast and deep, for it was the busy hum of men. 
And numbers among them said with hollow eyes and mournful 
voice, " Alas ! true happiness is not found in the whirl of busi- 
ness. Who will tell us where to seek it ?" And again I seemed 
to hear a voice from Heaven, answering, the words of your God 
— oh, children of men — will show you the path of happiness. 
Read them. 

It was a day in autumn. The wind had stripped the trees, 
their dry leaves carpeted the earth, old men and women were 
reposing in the faint sunshine before their houses, while their 
children were at work, and each one thought to himself; Soon 
my last sun will rise ; soon will the sharp blasts of death detach 
me from the tree of life, and lay me low, like these leaves, on the 
earth. Who will give me the assurance of immortality ? Who 
will give me eternal life ? And again I seemed to hear a voice 
from Heaven, answering, " Aged men, the words of your. God 
can give it to you. Read them." 

It was winter. Everything was dry, frozen, dead. It was the 
time when men assembling, incite each other to crime ; but it 
was the time also, when God speaks powerfully to the soul. 
Conscience, that invisible witness, which each of us bears within, 
seemed awakened in many. Men and women, young and old, 
in the country, and in town, mourned over their faults. One 
voice in a tone of terror exclaimed, " I have sinned. The death 
which now reigns over all nature, dwells also in my soul ; I do 
nothing but what is wrong; who can endure the day of the 
Lord's coming? Who shall stand when He appeareth ? My sins, 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 225 

my sins, who will deliver me from them ? Who will save me ?" 
And I seemed to hear a voice from Heaven, saying, Jesus Christ ! 
Jesus Christ will deliver thee. He has come to seek and save 
that which is lost. Read the word of God and thou wilt know 
thy Saviour, thou wilt possess salvation ! 

III. 

" Hear ye this word which T take up against you, even a lamen- 
tation, oh house of Israel." There seems a spell cast upon men. 
Despite all solicitations they will not take this precious Book to 
their hearts, though the words of God are written in it. 

It was offered to a woman with white hair, and shrunken hands 
and tottering limbs ; " Ah, leave us in peace," she exclaimed, 
" do not trouble us with your Bibles ;" and she shut her door 
against the holy volume and him who bore it. Ah, Lord ! the 
children of this generation seek books of amusement, but they 
despise thy Word. 

It was next presented to a man of haughty appearance, with a 
lofty glance and an air of dignity. He laughed in scorn at the 
offer ; with a demoniac sarcasm and a fearful oath, that caused 
the Book to fall from the hands of the trembling listener, he went 
his way. Ah, Lord ! the children of this generation feast on 
infamous books, but they despise thy Word. 

Another approached. One would have taken him at the first 
glance for a truly venerable personage. His words were smoother 
than oil, bat they left a sting behind sharper than any two-edged 
sword. Under the sheep's clothing, glittered the cruel eyes of a 
devouring wolf. " You must not read the Word of God," he ex- 
claimed. Then he uttered blasphemy against it, and snatching 
the book from the hands of an old man who had found there the 
hope of eternal life and heavenly consolation, he threw it with 
sacrilegious hands into the fire ; the flames arose and consumed 
it. I looked and behold ! nothing but ashes remained of the ora- 
cles of Israel. 

Ah, Lord, the children of this generation seek after cunningly 
devised fables and false doctrines ; but they despise thy word. 
" You must not read the word of God," say they, and yet the 
voice of antiquity has spoken. The exhortations of the saints of 
the Eternal have been heard. All the teachers of the flock of 
Christ in the early ages of pure Christianity have entreated men 
to read the Holy Scriptures, and to listen to the oracles of the 
Almighty. But Christianity is sadly fallen, and neglects the voice 
of its early benefactors. 

Oh proud and audacious tongue that dared to say, " Read not 
the word of God ;" didst thou not fear lest the breath of the Al- 
mighty should smite thee into eternal silence, with a word ! And 
you, ye sacrilegious hands, that snatched from the old man those 
oracles of truth, feared you not the paralyzing touch of death ? 
earth ! earth ! earth ! hear the voice of God's people, of the 
teachers of the Truth, of the Fathers of the Church of Christ, of 
10* 



226 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

those who are now in the kingdom of Heaven with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob. 

Christians ! they speak to you from the stake and from the 
cross, to which they were condemned here below for the love 
they bore to Jesus. They speak to you from the height of 
Heaven, where they are reigning in glory now with their Re- 
deemer. Listen to their voices ; they are the voices of friends. 
They " fought a good fight" in behalf of this Gospel to which 
you owe every blessing you enjoy ; the dedication of your little 
children to God's service ; the peaceful repose of your aged 
parents ; the intelligence of your mature age ; the sweets of 
home-happiness ; the arts of peace, and above all, eternal life. 

Child of man, whoever thou art, man or woman, young or old, 
master or servant, layman or priest, wise or ignorant, rich or poor, 
listen ! This cloud of witnesses calls to you out of heaven to 
take up the Book of God; to read it, to treasure its teachings in 
your heart, and to act them out in your life. 

Come then — traverse with me the early ages of the Church, 
but first put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place 
whereon we tread is holy ground. He who calls himself, I am, 
the author and finisher of our faith, is about to speak. 

IV. 

" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning 
with God ; all things were made by Him, and without Him was 
not anything made that was made. And the Word was made 
flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." 
He called Himself 

JESUS CHRIST. 

Eighteen centuries ago earth was filled with rejoicings — God 
was made man ! All who heard and believed the tidings receiv- 
ed eternal life. Darkness fled before this light. 

" Ah, we can no more hear Him ! We can see Him no more ! 
He has gone back to Heaven." Sons of men, you can yet hear 
Him ; His word is in the midst of you ; Why do you not read 
it? He who was from everlasting, and who for man's salvation 
veiled Himself in flesh, eighteen centuries ago, cast His far-reach- 
ing glance over ages to come. He saw that future generations 
would also sigh after eternal life, and He wished to open a way 
by which they too might be saved. Therefore, He gave them a 
commandment. Earth ! earth ! earth ! listen to the command 
of Jesus Christ : " Search the Scriptures, for in them ye 

THINK YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, AND THEY ARE THEY WHICH TES- 
TIFY of me."* Thus spoke the Lord Jesus. 

* The Gospel according to St. John, v. 19, translated from the Vulgate 
by the Master De Saci, printed in 1 759 by De Bret, ordinary printer to the 
King and clergy of France. 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 227 

This is the first voice, and the greatest Lord, enable us to un- 
derstand thy words I 



SONS OF MEN ! READ THE BOOK. 

A certain man urged on the murderers of the first martyr, and 
kept their clothes while they stoned him to death. This man, as he 
journeyed at noon on the highway, was startled by the splendor of 
a supernatural light that burst upon him, and he fell to the earth. 
He heard a voice calling him by name, and answered, " who art 
thou ?" The voice replied, " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest : 
rise up, for I will send you to the Gentiles to open their eyes that 
they maybe converted." And this man became the chief laborer 
under God, in planting anew the tree of life in the desolate home 
of man. He was called St. Paul. Asia, Macedonia, Greece and 
Rome heard his voice, and a living spirit was infused into their 
dead bodies. 

Men of this generation, he has instructions for yon also. There 
are some who in their sad delusion say, " All Scripture is not 
good ; it is not sufficient to teach us, to show us the way of salva- 
tion, to prepare us for good works." Listen to the words of St. 
Paul — " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is pro- 
fitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works."* 

This was the second voice. Lord, enable us to understand 
these words ! 

VI. 

SONS OF MEN ! READ THE BOOK. 

The Son had scattered the seed. The Holy Spirit vivified it, and 
Jews and Pagans, that long sterile soil, gave signs of life. Holy 
churches sprang up everywhere, like trees bearing flowers and 
fruit. Of the believers among the Jews, there were some who re- 
ceived the name of " noble," and the commendations of the Holy 
Spirit. They were the faithful Bereans. 

And wherefore were they so honored ? Because they searched 
the Scriptures daily, to see if these things were so ; and believed 
nothing which their preacher told them, unless it corresponded 
with the teaching of God's Word And yet these preachers were 
great apostles ; they were St. Paul and Silas. 

Children of the present day —imitate the Christians of Berea. Be- 
lieve nothing that your preachers tell you, unless you find warrant 
for it in the Bible ; and that you may be able to judge whether 
their teachings correspond with it, read it daily — read it much. . , y 

* 2d Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, 3d chap., 16, 17 verses, Omnis scrip- 
tura divinitus inspirata utilis est ad docendum, ad arguendum, ad corri- 
pendum in iustitia: ut perfectus sit homo Dei, ad omne opus bonum in- 
structus. — (Vulgate. ) 



228 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

St. Luke says — They of Berea " were more noble than those in 
Thessalonica," in that they received the word with all readiness 
of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether these things 
were so."* 

This is the third voice. Lord enable us to understand these 
words ! 

VII. 

SONS OF MEN ! READ THE BOOK. 

Sixteen centuries ago, on the point where the Rhone and the 
Saone mingle their waters, there arose a great light. A son of the 
East, a disciple of Polycarp, who had himself sat at the feet of the 
disciple whom Jesus loved, crossed the seas, ascended the Rhone, 
and took up his abode in the city of Lyons, in which he became 
a minister. 

All who lived, on the banks of the Rhone, of the Saone, and far- 
ther still, were charmed with his teachings. 

They abandoned their idols, and adored the Lord Jesus. The 
Saviour lifted up his pierced hand on them in benediction, and 
they began to live. 

This man Avas called Saint Irenseus. (A. .D. 177.) 

Listen to the lessons which he gave on the banks of the Rhone 
and Saone 1600 years ago : 

You say that the Scriptures are obscure and ambiguous. Ire- 
nseus says, M These things are placed before our eyes openly and 
without ambiguity in the different books of Scripture. f All these 
may openly and without ambiguity be equally understood by all t 
They must be very stupid § who close their eyes against so clear 
a revelation, and refuse to admit the light of the preached word." 

This is the fourth voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

VIII. 

SONS OF MEN ! READ THE BOOK. 

A mau, in eager pursuit of science, but still under the yoke of 
heathenism, traversed Greece, Ionia, and Italy, and visited in these 
abodes of high civilisation the schools of the world's philosophers, 
hoping to find truth there. 

* Acts xvii. 11. Hi autem erant nobiliores eorum, qui sunt Thessaloni- 
cae, qui susceperunt verbum cum omni aviditate, quotidie scrutantes scrip- 
turas, si haec ita se haberent. (Vulgate.) 

f Aperte et sine ambiguo. 

j Similiter ab omnibus audiri possint. 

§ Valde hebetes— Tarn lucidam. (Five books against all heresies, by St. 
Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons, Book II., chap. 46.) We do not give at length all 
the quotations in Greek and Latin from the Fathers, because they would 
occupy too much time and space, and would be without interest to a large 
class of readers. But a few are given to show the care that has been taken 
to have recourse to the original writings of the Fathers. All the passages 
alluded to may be found in an elegant work, entitled " The Select Library 
of the Fathers of the Church," by Mr. N. S. Guillon, Professor of Theolo- 
gy at Paris, Preacher in Ordinary to the King, &c, Paris, 1824. 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 229 

In his journeyings he arrived at a city, famous for its splendor 
and wisdom, near the banks of the Nile. There he heard, for the 
first time, of the Lord Jesus, and there he believed. He received 
from the Redeemer remission of his sins, and brake his idols in 
pieces. A few more months passed, and he was himself spread- 
ing the light of truth through Egypt, Jerusalem, and Antioch. — 
Thousands of ministers of God were formed under his teachings. 
He was called Saint Clement of Alexandria. (A. D. 190.) 

It is said by men of our day, " The spirit of the age and errone- 
ous doctrines have misled great numbers ; the Scriptures are no 
longer fit for them: they cannot understand them." 

Hear what the Doctor of the Nile replies : 

" Let him whose eyes are obscured by a bad education, and by 
false doctrines, hasten to the light, to the truth, to the Holy Scrip- 
tures, which will reveal to him what cannot be written. The 
Bible kindles a spark in the soul ; it opens the spirit's eyes, that it 
may see ; and like the gardener who grafts a tree, communicates 
to it something new."* 

This is the fifth voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

IX. 

Persecution was devastating the churches of Egypt. The popu- 
lace rose in crowds against the Christians, and Severus crushed 
them with his sceptre. 

A young man of sixteen years saw his father seized by a band 
of soldiers. He implored them to release him, but in vain. Leo- 
nidas was thrown into a dungeon. The young man determined to 
present himself before the heathen tribunal. He also would con- 
fess his Saviour — he would offer his life to those who murdered 
his brothers, while his father tried to shield them at the expense 
of his own. His heart-broken mother clasped him in her arms ; 
and seeing him about to escape from her, she carried away his 
toga and tunic, and hid her son's garments that she might save 
his life. Then the young man, seeing that he could not share the 
death of his father, exclaimed, " At least, do not abandon, for our 
sakes, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Leonidas died a martyr's death, leaving his wife a widow, his 
son without a protector, and six other children, still very young. 
The young man became a minister : he rose to the chair of Cle- 
ment. And if Clement instructed a thousand, the son of Leonidas 
instructed ten thousand. He was called Origen. (A. D. 220.) 

Men of our day — listen to the voice which charmed the eastern 
world. You say, " Who can explain to us these Scriptures ? 
Shall men unfold their mysteries, and explain their hidden sense 
to us ? Shall we have a human tribunal ?" 

The Doctor of the Church replies : 

" My son, read above all, with deep attention, for this is requisite 
in order to speak and judge of them without precipitation. If 

* Works of St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromatum, Book I.,p. 274. 



230 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

you persevere in the reading of the Bible with a fixed mind and 
with faith, knock, and whatever is shut will be opened to you by 
the porter of whom Jesus speaks in the Gospel according to St. 
John, chap, x., verse 3. Nevertheless, it is not enough to seek and 
to knock ; that which is most of all necessary to enable us to un- 
derstand heavenly things — is prayer. The Saviour enjoins it on 
us when he says, not only ' Seek and ye shall find — knock and it 
shall be opened unto you ;' but also ' Ask and it shall be given 
unto you,' "* 
Lord, enable us to understand these words ! 

X. 

A certain bishop devoted his life to the preaching of the cross 
throughout Carthage, Africa, and all the West. Persecution ra- 
vaged the empire — and soon the venerable head of the bishop of 
Carthage was to be laid low on the scaffold. His persecutors 
were about to convey him to Utica, the birthplace of Cato, but he 
escaped from them, determined that if he was to die for his Mas- 
ter's cause, it should be among his own people — among the men 
and women, the aged and the young, whom he had taught, so 
that they might receive the last testimony which his words and 
his death could render to the glory of his Saviour. And when he 
learned that it was in Carthage, in the very bosom of his flock, 
that he was called to the crown of martyrdom — he cheerfully re- 
signed himself into the hands of the proconsul. At the moment 
when the magistrate was pronouncing his sentence of death, his 
heart bounded, his eyes were raised to Heaven with a hopeful 
gaze, and he uttered these simple words. " God be praised !" 
He was called Cyprian. (A. D. 258.) 

Before the murderous sword shall have stifled in death that 
voice of wisdom, speak, oh man of God, to the people that sur- 
round thee, and tell them how they may find the path to that 
heavenly home, towards which thy looks of love and hope are 
directed. 

He did speak — and spoke for all ages. Listen to the voice of 
the martyr. 

" God was pleased to reveal much to his servants, the prophets,t 
but how much greater are the revelations which His Son has 
given us,{ those which the word of God, "who inspired the prophets, 
has made known to us, with his own voice. He commands no 
longer that the way shall be prepared before him ; but He comes Him- 
self. He points out to us the way of life, and freely opens its en- 
trance to us ; and we who were lying in darkness, and in the 
shadow of death, are enlightened by the illumination of His Spirit, 
that we may be enabled to walk in that path under His divine 

# A letter from Origen to his former pupil, Gregory of Nazianzen. Phi- 
localia, chap. 13. (Collection of the Writings of Origen made by Saint 
Gregory and Saint Basil.) 
t Multa et per prophetas servos suos, etc. (The Old Testament.) 
t Sed quanto majora sunt quae filius loquitur. (The Gospel.) 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 231 

guidance. Oh brothers, well beloved ! the teachings of the Gos- 
pel are the lessons of God Himself — these are the foundations on 
which our faith must rest, the helm which directs our vessel,* the 
citadel in which we find safety. They who in sincere faith receive 
these teachings on earth, will be guided to that glorious Home 
which God has prepared for those who love Him. 

This is the seventh voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XL 

Persecution raged against the Christians, but the truth of God 
spread faster and wider. 

The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. Then 
Satan, who was the spirit that animated the princes and priests 
of Paganism, inspired them with a new idea. " Let us burn," 
they said, " all the copies of the Scriptures ; let us destroy the 
word of God : so shall we annihilate the source from which this 
religion flows, and Christianity shall be for ever banished from the 
earth." 

This design bore direct evidence of its infernal origin, but Jesus 
was watching over His people and His cause from His throne of 
glory in the Heavens. 

The priests of Jupiter and Bacchus demanded the Bible with 
loud outcries. The proconsuls caused the houses of Christians 
to be searched. Alas ! alas ! some poor timid wretches were cow- 
ardly enough to deliver up the book of God rather than face death 
in its defence. But others, faithful even unto death, refused to 
surrender it, and resigned their lives rather than their Bibles. 

All the copies that could be collected were heaped up in the 
public squares and burned. The faithful saw from afar the rising 
flames, and stole mournfully and secretly by night to the spot 
where profane hands were committing to the fire the holy words 
which God has spoken. Tears flowed down their cheeks, and 
anguish filled their hearts, as they saw the oracles of Israel re- 
duced to ashes. They were the priests of the dissolute Jupiter, of 
the impure Venus, of the reeling, drunken Bacchus, who then 
burned the New Testament. Men of the nineteenth century ! who 
are they that burn it now ? 

" Shame, shame, everlasting shame," cried the Christians, " to 
those who delivered to unholy hands the sacred Word of God." 
They gave the name of traitorsf to these cowards, and drove them 
from their Churches. 

" Glory, glory, everlasting glory," sang the angels of Heaven, 
" to the witnesses for the truth and its defenders !" they are the 
Christian Martyrs. 

" Have you the Holy Scriptures ?" demanded the barbarous pro- 
consuls of these holy men ? 

" I have," was the reply. 

* Gubernacula dirigendi itineris. (Works of St. Cyprian. De Oratione 
dominica, in initio, p. 217.) 
t Traditores. 



232 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

" Where are they ?" 

" In my heart." 

And they burned the defenders of the Word of God, in order to 
reduce to ashes even the living tables on which the finger of God 
had inscribed His glorious truths.* 

This is the eighth voice. Lord, enable us to profit by these ex- 
amples ! 

XII. 

What man is this in the midst of the assembly of bishops, like 
a rock in the bosom of the ocean, who silences all those that deny 
that he who died on the cross was the true God, and who suffers 
repeated banishments for maintaining the supreme Divinity of his 
Saviour and mine ? 

He is called St. Athanasius. (A. D. 325 ) 

He speaks thus to Christians who have strayed into error. " If 
you would bring forward something beyond what is written, why 
do you dispute with us ? We are determined to speak and to hear 
nothing in these matters but what God has revealed to us in Scrip- 
ture." f 

Then addressing the heathen who were seeking God, he said, 
* The Holy Scriptures are inspired by God and are sufficient to 
guide you into all truth." J 

This is the ninth voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XIII. 

On the banks of Vienne, a bishop feeds his flock, and within the 
walls of Poic tiers delights the Gauls by his piety and the depth of 
his wisdom. He is called St Hilary. (A. D. 350.) 

He turns towards the East, towards the magnificent city of Con- 
stan tine, and addressing him, who from that majestic throne gov- 
erns the world, he says — " Oh Emperor, you are seeking faith ! 
Turn not in search of it to new and enticing books, but search the 
Scriptures, where alone its true foundation lies." Then address- 
ing the Christian people around him, he said, " Let us read the 
things which are written, let us understand what we read, and 
then our faith will be perfect." 

This is the tenth voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XIV. 
Who is this young man who studies in the flourishing schools 
of Athens, Alexandria, Constantinople and Csesarea, and who, after 
having cultivated ancient letters, displays as bishop, all the trea- 
sures of wisdom and benevolence, and endeavors to restore 
peace between the contending East and West ? 

* Acts of Satuminus, of Dativus and others in Africa. Ruinart, Du 
Pin,&c. 
t Works of St. Athanasius. De Incarnatione Christi. 
% lb. Oratio contra gentes. 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 233 

It is Saint Basil. (A. D. 870.) He tells us, " it is right and ne- 
cessary that each one should learn from the inspired word of God 
whatever is needful for his growth in grace, and to defend him- 
self against the evils of human tradition." * 

And wishing still more effectually to warn men against mere 
human treachery in divine things, the holy man adds, " it is want 
of faith, it is great pride, it is a heinous crime, to wish to take any- 
thing away from Scripture, or add anything thereto." f 

This is the eleventh voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XV. 

Who is this that dares to bar the way against imperial majesty 
because its garments have been dipped in blood, and refuses to 
celebrate the Holy Communion in the presence of him, before 
whom Asia, Africa and Europe tremble, because he delivered up 
his subjects to the fury of his soldiery ? From within the walls of 
Milan he summons the great Theodosius to bow before Him who 
alone is truly great and glorious. It is Saint Ambrose. (A. D. 
380.) 

He points both kings and people to the source of life. " Drink," 
he says, " of the two cups of the Old and New Testament, for 
from each of them you may drink of Christ. :f Thus shall you 
drink of the blood by which you are redeemed. Thus shall you 
drink His words. The Old Testament, no less than the New, is 
all His word. We drink the Holy Scriptures, we devour the sa- 
cred Book, when the aliment of the eternal word descends into the 
veins of our soul and the powers of our mind,§ for " man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out 
of the mouth of God." 

This is the twelfth voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XVI. 

A recluse sits with his head bowed in deep study over the Book 
of God, in the birthplace of the Saviour. Around him from the 
fields of Bethlehem a multitude of disciples are assembled to learn 
the truths of Scripture, and from him the knowledge of the word 
of God is spread throughout the West. This is Saint Jerome. 
(A. D. 390.) 

From his hermitage, he casts a mental glance over the children 
of that generation within the bounds of Rome, the magnificent, 
and writes thus to a Roman lady of high rank : 

* Works of Saint Basil — Bishop of Csesarea. Regulae breviores, Re- 
sponsio 95. 

t Ibid, Sermo de fide, page 224. 

| Utrumque poculum bibe Veteris et Novi Testamenti, quia ex utroque 
Christum bibis. 

§ Bibitur scriptura divina, et devoratur scriptura divina, cum in venas 
mentis ac vires animi succus verbi descendit aeterni. Works of Saint Am- 
brose. Bishop of Milan, in Psalm 1. Enarratio. 



234 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

" Teach your daughter, from her earliest years, to love the 
Holy Scriptures better than gems and silks.* Let her learn from 
Job a lesson of patience and fortitude, and passing thence to the 
Gospel, let her never relax her hold on its blessed truths."! 

Then addressing those who affirmed that the Bible could not 
be understood by all, the hermit of Bethlehem said : 

" The Apostles have written, and the Saviour Himself has 
spoken in the Gospels, not that a few, but that all might under- 
stand."]: 

Plato wrote for the learned few, not for the mass ; and few 
indeed understand him. But these, that is the princes of the 
Church, the Prophets and Apostles of the Lord Jesus wrote not 
for the few, but for all.§ 

This is the thirteenth voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XVII. 

A young man of seventeen, just released from the faithful in- 
structions of his pious mother, mingles with the heathen of Car- 
thage in all the pleasures and disorders of that great city. But 
the pious Monica continued to pray, " Oh Lord, convert my son." 
The young Numidian is seduced by the deceitful religion of 
Manes : and soon after, his spirit is filled with enthusiasm for the 
philosophy of Plato. Still Monica continued her prayer — " Lord, 
convert my son !" 

Next, he gave himself up with intense interest to the study of 
the art of rhetoric. The reputation of Ambrose attracts his notice. 
He enters the Christian temples of Milan in search of eloquence, 
and the words of the holy bishop break over his heart like the 
waves of the sea against its shores. And Monica, trembling with 
hope, prayed yet more earnestly — " Oh God, convert my son." 

Her son, filled with anguish, ashamed of himself and of his dissi- 
pated youth — sought one day the solitude of his garden, that he 
might yield to his emotions unobserved. He threw himself down 
under a fig-tree ; he wept bitterly ; out of the depths of sorrow he 
cried unto the Lord. And a voice, soft and sweet as that of a 
child, stole on his ear, saying, " Take and read." He arose ; a Bi- 
ble was near him on a seat ; and as he opened it, his eyes fell on 
these words, " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." (St. Paul's Epis- 
tle to the Romans, chap. xiii. verse 14 ) — Peace flowed into his 
soul like a river; and a great light, like the sun of righteousness, 
shone in upon his understanding. He had found his Saviour. 

He rose to the episcopal chair of Hippo ; he became the torch 

* Pro gemmis et serico divinas codices amet. 

fAdEvangelia transeat, nunquam ea positura de manibus. Works of 
St. Jerome, author of the translation called the Vulgate, used in the Catho- 
lic Church, Epistola 107, § 12. 

X Non ut pauci intelligerent, sed ut omnes. Ibid. S. Hyeronymi in 
Psalm 87. 

§ Non scripserunt paucis, sed universo populo. lb. Comm. S. Hyero- 
nymi in Psalm 87. 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 235 

of the West, and all ages acknowledge him as the greatest of the 
Fathers. He was called St. Augustine (A. D. 396.) 
g i In his time the Bible formed the subject of study and meditation 
among Christians of all ages, sexes, and conditions. What books 
are these which men are carrying on highways, in villages, in 
lanes, in the streets of cities, offering them to soldiers and to wo- 
men, to young and old. to great and small ? 

St. Augustine joyfully replies, " It is the Holy Scriptures which 
are thus publicly exposed for sale."* 

A multitude of errors began to darken the horizon. The doc- 
trines of Pelagius, of Priscillian, of Arius, of the disciples of Dona- 
tus, mingled in the spiritual kingdom like the fearful lightning 
preceding a night of storms. The Bishop of Hippo, calm as the 
luminary which receives its light from the sun, shed his safe and 
peaceful beams on all around. 

With what weapon will you repulse these false teachers, oh son 
of Monica ? and to what authority will you appeal, oh venerable 
man of God ? He replies, " Who knows not that the canonical 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are contained within 
certain limits, and that they are to be preferred far above all the 
later writings of the bishops,f so that it is impossible to bring in 
doubt or question whether what is written be true and authentic ?{ 
There are, undoubtedly, certain books of God, whose authority 
we all recognize ; we believe them, and we obey them. There 
let us seek to identify the Church : by them let us discuss our 
cause. § Let us cast away all arguments drawn from other sour^ 
ces. I cannot admit the authority of human documents as a rule 
of the Church, nor anything but the oracles of God."|| 

But what will the simple and unlearned, who shun controversy, 
find in the Sacred Word, servant of God ? He replies, " The soul 
and the object of all Scripture is the love of Him who is the su- 
preme good, and the love of His creatures, who are capable of 
obtaining happiness from him. IT The legitimate effect of Holy 
Scripture is, first, to bring him who reads it to acknowledge him- 
self in bondage to the love of this world, and a stranger to the 
love of God and of his fellow-beings, which the Word enjoins. 
The knowledge of the truth gives life, and excites in man, instead 
of his former presumptuous pride, humility and holy grief. Filled 
with deep sorrow, he is led to constant prayer, and in answer to 
it, receives, by the grace of God, joy and peace in believing. He 
does not sink into despair at the sight of his guilt, but is filled with 
an hungering and thirsting after righteousness. He flies from the 

* Scriptura venalis fertur per publicum. Works of St. Augustine, Bish- 
op of Hippo. In Psalm 36. 

t Omnibus posterioribus episcoporum litteris esse praeponendum. 

X Works of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Epistola de baptismo con- 
tra Donatistas ; t. 9, p. 98. 

§ Ibi discutiamus causam nostram. 

|| Ibid. De unitate ecclesiae, p. 341. 

TT Works of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. De doctrina Christiana; 
L. I., c. 35. 



236 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

allurements of worldly and perishable pleasures, and a" love for 
that which is unseen and eternal is kindled within him."* 

This is the fourteenth voice. Lord, enable us to understand 
these words ! 

XVIII. 

SONS OF MEN ! READ THE BOOK. 

A'hermit descended from the mountains near Antioch. He 
lifted up his voice in that metropolis of Asia, and ears and hearts 
were thrilled by his discourses. The imperial court soon resound- 
ed with his name, and he was called to the patriarchal chair of 
Constantinople, the new Rome, the capital of the world, which 
crowned with splendor the banks of the Bosphorus. 

Who of all the children of men spoke like him ? 

A multitude hung upon his words ; the poor were consoled ; 
the great astonished; and the Gospel, by his indefatigable exer- 
tions, was carried to the barbarous gentile nations. 
s But suddenly a noise, as of approaching tempests, was heard 
in the palace of the Emperors. A desolating wintry wind sweeps 
howling from the magnificent dwelling of the haughty Eudoxia. 
He casts out the patriarch from his seat ; he banishes him to the 
desert ; — and there, an exile in a barbarous land, consumed by 
fever, as he is dragged onward by the satellites of the Emperor, 
he dies in the grasp of the soldiers, exclaiming triumphantly, 
" Glory be to God !" The people, charmed by his eloquence, had 
given him the name of St. Chrysostom (A. D. 400), or the Golden- 
Mouth. 

Oh ! if the patriarch of Constantinople could speak, at this mo- 
ment, to the aged man by his fire-side — to the young man in his 
fields — to the noble in his palace — to the man of business in the 
midst of his sales and purchases — to the priest among his presby- 
tery, and to the mother in her nursery — what would he say to 
you all, rich in this world's goods, who have all things, except 
the Word of God, or who have it merely as an ornament on the 
shelves of your libraries ? Listen ! The Golden-mouth says — 
" There are dice to be found in most houses, but Bibles in few, if 
any ; and those who have them, are as if they had them not, for 
they keep them magnificently bound, and shut up in cases; and 
own|them, not for the benefit they may draw from them, but to 
display their taste and opulence. It was not for the purpose of 
shutting them up in rich covers that the Holy Scriptures were 
given us, but to be engraven upon our hearts."! 

What would the patriarch say to you, men of the world, who 
ask, " How can we be expected to read the Word of God? The 
multiplicity of our public and private affairs leaves us no time for 
such a purpose." 

* Works of St. Augustine, L. II., c. 7. 

t Works of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople. Homil. 
Johan, 32 Savil. II., p. 686. 



A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 237 

Listen to the Golden-Mouth. " Is not the very fact a reproach 
to you, that you have allowed yourselves to become so absorbed 
in earthly things, that you have no leisure left for the most impor- 
tant and indispensable of all ? But we have witnesses who declare 
that to be merely a vain excuse. These witnesses are your gay 
so!cial assemblies, your presence at the theatre, and at other pub- 
lic places, where you sometimes spend whole days.' 5 * 

Listen, men in humble life, whether in the city or the country, 
to what the Golden-Mouth says to you — you who say, " We are 
poor, how can we obtain a Bible ?" " Let me ask you," he says, 
" if you have not all the implements necessary for your occupa- 
tion ? And is it not in that case folly to allege poverty as an ex- 
cuse, in a question of such immense advantage."! 

To you who affirm that " the reading of the Holy Scriptures be- 
longs to the clergy and the priests, and that laymen have nothing 
to do with them," the venerable patriarch says : listen to him of 
the Golden-Mouth— 

" Let no one utter in my presence those cold and wicked words, 
c I am a man of the world ; 1 have a wife and children ; it is not 
my business to read the Bible ; such an occupation becomes those 
who have renounced the world to lead a life of seclusion with 
God.' What sayest thou, oh man ! Is it not thy business to ap- 
ply thyself diligently to the Scriptures, because thou art driven 
and tossed by ten thousand conflicting cares ! Precisely the re- 
verse ; it is much more needful for thee than for those of whom 
thou dost speak. Far from the field of battle, they receive few 
wounds, but thou who art always on the scene of combat, art in- 
cessantly wounded anew, and hast consequently need of many 
more remedies to cure thee. Let us not delay, then, to obtain a 
Bible, lest we meanwhile receive a mortal stroke. Let us not heap 
up gold, but let us collect Bibles : the very sight of that holy Book 
makes us shudder at our sinfulness. What then will it be, when, 
from^a diligent reading of it, our souls shall have become living 
stones in the temple of our God ?"t 

For you who say that the Bible cannot be understood by all ; 
that it was made for the priests, and for the deeply learned ; but 
that the mass, the artisans and laborers, cannot comprehend its 
sense ; — the patriarch has a word also. " The grace of the Holy 
Ghost has caused these holy books to be written by publicans, by 
fishermen, by tent-makers, by shepherds, by herdsmen, by the 
illiterate, for the express purpose that no person, however igno- 
rant, might have recourse to that pretext for not reading them ; 
that the contents of the Scriptures might be intelligible to all, and 
that the laborer — the servant — the poor widow — the most igno- 
rant of men, might draw instruction from them. Destined to be 
teachers of the whole world, these sacred writers, who were in- 
spired by the Holy Spirit, have made known all things in a clear 

* Works of St John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople. Homil. 
Johan. 32 Savil. IL, p. 686. 
t Ibid., Homil, 9, in Johan. J In Lazarum Cone. 3. 



238 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

and distinct manner, for the express purpose that each one might 
understand them for himself, without finding it necessary to have 
recourse to another. " I come not (to you)," said St. Paul, " with 
excellency of speech or of wisdom." (1 Corinthians ii. 1.) Take 
the Bible in your own hands — read ; retain firmly what you un- 
derstand ; read over many times what seems to you obscure ; and 
then, if repeated study fails to make it clear to you, ask the assist- 
ance of a more enlightened brother, or of a teacher. God, who 
sees your zeal, will not allow your efforts to be fruitless. And 
even should no man make known to you what you seek, God himself will 
reveal it to you in his own good time and manner." 

" Remember the * Eunuch of great authority' under the Queen 
of Ethiopia. (Acts viii.) He read as he journeyed, seated in his 
chariot. He had no one to explain to him what he read ; but God 
saw his zeal, and sent him a teacher. True, we have no longer a 
Philip, but we have the Holy Spirit still who inspired Philip." 

This is the last voice. Lord, enable us to understand these 
words ! 

XIX. 

Thus spoke those holy men who stood foremost in the ranks of 
the Redeemer's service on earth, and who have now sat down in 
the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. 

Who will dare to contradict what they have spoken ? Who 
would blacken the memory of the confessors of Christ? Who 
would dishonor the ashes of his martyrs ? 

Soldier, who hast taken arms that thy countrymen may enjoy 
in peace the fruits of their labor ; husbandman, who at night-fall 
dost leave thy fields and bend thy weary steps towards thy cot- 
tage home ; artisan, who remainest in thy shop while thy com- 
panions are wasting their time and energies in folly ; merchant, 
before the hour of business ; magistrate, before the hour of duty ; 
woman, in the quiet of the sanctuary of home : young man, daz- 
zled by the illusions of the present ; king, upon thy throne ; — 
beggar, by the way-side ; listen, all, to the counsels of the saints 
of the most High God ; their wise admonitions reach you across 
the vast space of many ages. Read ! read ! read ! the Word 
of God. 

XX. 

Lord, if another voice than thine or than that of thy servants 
appealed to me ; if though while upon earth thou didst say 
" search the Scriptures," other voices tell me, " shut them from 
sight, cast them away — burn them," what should I do, Lord ? 

And I seemed to hear a whisper escaping from the leaves of 
the holy volume before me, and swell into a strong voice " as 
the sound of many waters," saying, " though an angel from 

HEAVEN PREACH ANY OTHER GOSPEL UNTO YOU THAN THAT WHICH 
WE HAVE PREACHED UNTO YOU, LET HIM BE ACCURSED."* GalatiailS 

* (Licet angelus de caelo evangelizet vobis praeter quam quod evangeli- 
zavimus vobis, anathema sit. Vulgate.) 






A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY, 239 

i. 8. And I replied, " What wilt thou say, then, oh Lord, to 
those who oppose the reading of Thy Word by Thy people ; 
who forbid them to obtain it, who demand it from them when 
they own a copy, or order them to cast it into the fire ?" And I 
seemed to hear again a solemn response from the pages of the 
Holy Scriptures before me in these words, " Wo unto you, 
Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of 
heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither 
suffer ye them that are entering to go in !"* 

XXI. 

There is a certain place, whether a city, a village, or a hamlet, 
I shall not say, in a country which shall be nameless. Its inha- 
bitants despise the Word of God ; they will not read it ; they 
will have none of it : and every copy that could be found they 
have seized and torn up or burned. 

What has been the consequence ? Falsehood prevails there ; 
hatred has engendered quarrels among neighbors ; they eat the 
bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence : idleness 
has brought them to poverty ; and famine stalks abroad in their 
streets. " Away with the noise of your songs," said the Almigh- 
ty, " I will not listen to the music of your flutes. This people 
have fallen for want of wisdom, and their paths have gone down 
unto the dead." 

There is another place — whether a city, a village, or a hamlet, 
I shall not say — in a country which shall also be nameless. 

The young men there have sought for the Word of God ; those 
of mature years, too, read it : the aged meditate upon it. A man 
clothed in black stands among them ; he is venerable in his ap- 
pearance, and benevolence illuminates his features ; they ! call 
him pastor. He says, " My children, take the Bible — read it — it 
is the Word of God ;" and they follow his precepts. 

My heart bounded with thankfulness as I gazed on that happy 
scene ; for I saw the people prospering, because the blessing of 
the Lord rested upon their dwellings. Their barns were filled 
with plenty, and their presses burst out with new wine. Their 
ways were ways of pleasantness, and all their paths were peace. 
The divine Word had become a tree of life to all who had laid 
hold on it ; and all who retained it were richly blessed. 

A soul lies surrounded with the terrors of death, with the sobs 
and tears of a family mourning in deep bitterness ; the glory of 
life is passing rapidly away, yet that soul abides in unutterable 
peace, and seems a triumphant victor over the grave ! How can 
this be ? Because it has believed the assurance of the Gospel. 
Jesus is " the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world" 

Why is this soul carried in the arms of angels, amidst innume- 

* Vae autem vobis scribae et Pharisaei hypocritae J quia clauditis reg- 
num caelorum ante homines ; vos enim non intratis, nee introeuntes sini- 
tis intrare. (Vulgate) Matthew xxiii. 13. * 



240 A VOICE FROM ANTIQUITY. 

rable worlds, up to the bosom of God ? Why does it see God, 
face to face, having awakened in His likeness ? Because it has 
believed the Word of God which says, Jesus is " the way, and 
the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father but by 
Him." 

" Yes," says the Spirit, " blessed is the man whose delight is in 
the law of the Lord ; and in his law doth he meditate day and 
night." 

And all the saints and the angels in light reply : " He shall be 
like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his 
fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he 
doeth shall prosper."* All celestial intelligences respond, "Amen !" 
And all unite in the ascription, *' Glory be ,to the Father, and to 
the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, 
and ever shall be, world without end. Amen !" 

* Psalm l 



LUTIER AND CALVIN 



OR THE 



TRUE SPIRIT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH. 



PREFACE, 



This address was delivered June 6th, 1844, at the General Meet- 
ing of the Evangelical Society of Geneva. The Rev. Frederic 
Monod, deputy from the Evangelical Society of France, afterwards 
addressed the meeting, and in concluding spoke as follows : " I 
should not do justice to my feelings, if, before sitting down, T did 
not pray the committee of this Society to take into consideration, 
whether it would not be for the interest of the work of God in 
France, to have the address of our brother M. Merle printed 
separately, and circulated extensively among our churches. The 
evil pointed out in this address, is an evil which menaces — which 
advances on us more every day, and I know of nothing more 
suited to point it out, and consequently also to combat it." {See 
Report.) It is in compliance with this request that this address, 
which is not given in the Report, is published by the author in 
France,* and he feels himself constrained to add two remarks : — 
First, the following pages were never intended for publicity of 
this description ; being nothing more than notes thrown rapidly 
together on the paper. Again, very far from exhibiting a new and 
particular idea, as some people have supposed, they verify or 
prove an ecclesiastical fact, a fact which has long been recognized 
by the most respectable authorities, as could easily have been 
shown, had it not been thought necessary to be sparing of quota- 
tions. 

* The address was published in the original language in Paris. See 
publishers' Preface. — Tit* 



LUTHER AND CALVIN: 



OR, 



THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH. 



Gentlemen : 
The times are pressing. We must proceed to what is use- 
ful ; and not lose ourselves in much speaking, but search, accord- 
ing to the apostolic precept, for what may truly contribute to the 
edification of the Church. It is this thought which induces me 
to bring before you the following question : 

What is it, in our French reformed churches, that has charac- 
terized the year that has passed since our last anniversary ? 

It is, unless I am deceived, the manifestation anew of principles 
which have often been designated by the name of parties opposed 
to us, but of which from the heart we wish to speak in a friendly 
style, and shall therefore call them (making use of a name which 
is dear to us) the principles of Lutheranism. 

Lutheranism and Reform* have distinctive characters ; but they 
are not separated so much by errors as by diversities. 

God willed that diversity, that the work of the Reformation 
might be complete. His powerful hand, intending from the be- 
ginning to cause immense bodies to move round the sun, endowed 
them with opposing forces, the one of which tends to take them 
aw r ay from the centre, and the other to draw them closer to it. 
From these apparent contradictions, he produced the course of 
the universe, and the admirable unity of the celestial system. It 
was the same in the times of the reformation. Opposing tenden- 
cies were necessary for that work ; and these same tendencies it 
is which imprinted upon it such admirable unity. 

" In the garden of my master, 
There are flowers of ev'ry kind,", 

sings a Christian author, f Shall we, gentlemen, only perceive 

* It is almost unnecessary to remind the reader that the word Reforma- 
tion applies to the whole work of the 19th century, and the words Reform 
and Reformed apply especially to the work of Zwingle and Calvin. 

t Tersteegen. 



246 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

there one flower ? Ah ! let us beware, careless gardeners that 
we are, of tearing up indigenous plants whose nature is pecu- 
liarly adapted to our soil, to our climate, and of planting in their 
stead exotics which require a different soil, and which may per- 
ish among our hands. 

Yes, gentlemen, let us comprehend it well ; there is not only 
friendship — there is not only agreement between Lutheranism 
and Reform — there is more than all that — there is unity. 

There exists, above all, between them a profound unity, which 
results from both being animated by the same living faith. They 
believe equally in the complete incapacity of man to do good ; 
they believe in God manifested in the flesh ; in expiation by his 
blood; in regeneration by his Spirit; in justification by faith in 
his name ; in charity and good works by the power of his fellow- 
ship. 

But it is not this unity of identity of which we wish now to 
speak. We go much farther. We propose to show that Luther- 
anism and Reform are one even by their diversities, from which 
we shall draw the conclusion, that in place of effacing the 
greater part of these differences, and more especially those of 
Reform, which we should defend, they ought to be carefully 
preserved. Such is our thesis. 

Yes, gentlemen, those individuals deceive themselves strangely, 
who, knowing how to reckon the very different characteristics 
which at the present day distinguish Lutheranism and Reform, 
would cry out with painful surprise, " How then ! friends fewer, 
enemies more !" The body and the soul are very different in 
their attributes, nevertheless they are but one single being. Man 
and woman have quite opposite capacities and duties, and not- 
withstanding they are but one flesh. In Christ the human and 
divine natures were certainly distinct, but nevertheless there is 
only one Saviour. In the same manner, gentlemen, Lutheranism 
and Reform, though very different, are but one unity. 

Do they talk of their strifes ? Ah ! gentlemen, are there never 
then strifes between the body and the spirit, between the husband 
and the wife ? Did none exist even in Christ between his human 
and divine nature ? u My soul is troubled, and what shall I say ? 
Father, save me from this hour !" cried his human nature, shudder- 
ing at the approach of the cross. Strife, but strife overcome, far 
from being contrary to unity, is essential to it, at least upon the 
earth. I believe, gentlemen, that with Lutheranism and Reform 
the happy moment in which strife is overcome and unity triumphs 
is neary arrived, if imprudent friends of the former do not seek 
to bend the latter under its laws. Observe that Reform, which is 
the friend of proselytism, does not proselytize in Lutheranism; it 
loves it, respects it, and leaves it to its own strength, or rather to 
God's. But, wonderful to be told ! it is Lutheranism (certainly 
neither that of Germany or Geneva), it is Lutheranism passive in 
its character, iwhich advances heedlessly, and apparently wishing 
to deprive us of our patrimony, and to substitute itself in the place 
of the tricentennial work of our reformers. To bring about unity, 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 247 

is it then in reality necessary to slay one of the two members ? That 
may perhaps be one method, but it is not ours. 

Gentlemen, Lutheranism has great duties to discharge towards 
Reform, and. we know too well the noble principles of the excel- 
lent men in Germany, its true representatives, not to be assured 
that it will not fail in its duty. If one of two allied and friendly 
armies were to be beaten and dispersed by the common enemy, 
whilst the other was resting on its arms, with its leaders and 
standards, would the latter take advantage of the moment when 
the former was rallying, but still stunned with the blow it had 
received, to impose its colors upon it? or w^ould it not rather 
generously aid in recovering the ancient standard of its fathers ? 
This is what we require from Lutheranism. 

We do not require to inform you that we have not the slightest 
prejudice against Martin Luther. If in the history of the world 
there be an individual we love more than another, it is he. Calvin 
we venerate more, but. Luther we love more. Besides, Lutheran- 
ism is of itself dear and precious in our eyes, and with reason. 
In Reform there are principles of which we should be afraid, were 
it not for the counter-balance of Lutheranism ; and there are also 
in Lutheranism principles which would raise our alarm, were it 
not for the counter-balance of Reform. Luther and Lutheranism 
do not possess, even in Germany — even in Wittemberg — friends 
and admirers more ardent than we. 

But if the question be placed before us : " Ought Reform to give 
way in France, in Switzerland, and elsewhere, to Lutheranism ?" 
we answer without hesitation, Most certainly not ! 

Nevertheless, we think this is the question which has been 
placed before our Churches during the course of the past year. 

Has this question been replied to everywhere as it ought to have 
been ? We believe not. Reform is misrepresented even within 
Reform. Two centuries of persecution and humiliation have caus- 
ed it to lose its fairest traditions ; and principles to which it is 
opposed find pious and eloquent defenders. There are in its bo- 
som distinguished minds that hesitate, that are irresolute at the 
moment of reveille, and who, rnistakiug one voice for another, 
are about to undergo a strange transformation. After what is go- 
ing on at the present hour, it might be said that Reform might well 
institute societies, and exercise a certain external activity ; but if 
principles are involved, Lutheranism ought to supply them, so that 
it only remains to place ourselves under its tutelage. A banner 
of three centuries old is treated as a novelty and an innovation, 
and colors rejected by ten generations begin again to flourish here 
and there, in this Presbytery and in that Church ; and this society 
even, composed as it is exclusively of the Reformed, is almost 
giving them its support. There are countries covered with elo- 
quent ruins, sown with the sepulchres of the saints, where such 
things are going on, and where, unless they are arrested, the very 
stones will cry out. 

Gentlemen, we believe firmly that the Reformed French and 
Swiss do not require to beg directions from a stranger Church, and, 



248 LUtHER AND CALVIN. 

particularly, from a Church to which it is true they should be 
united in the same faith and charity, but which does not know 
them, and which, it must be said, notwithstanding notable excep- 
tions, has often been found awanting to them in justice and im- 
partiality. If Reform is to survive, it must live the life which 
befits it. In its own traditions it possesses abundance where- 
withal to produce the most splendid inspirations, but unfortunate- 
ly it does not appreciate them ; and, in place of exploring the 
golden mine of its antiquity, though certainly with some difficulty, 
and with the sweat on the brow, it prefers receiving from hands 
eager to enrich it, a coinage already struck, but struck with the 
stamp and the arms of a stranger. 

That the Reformed Church may apply herself to guard the 
principles which God has confided to her keeping, she must first 
know them. What are they, then ? It is to the searching out of 
these that we shall devote this address ; and we shall only ad- 
duce truths recognized these three centuries past, but which in 
our days seem to be forgotten. 

A great mind, the penetrating genius of Montesquieu, already 
perceived the fundamental difference between Lutheranism and 
Reform, when he says in his Spirit of the Laws (Esprit des Lois), 
" Each of these two religions may think itself the most perfect : 
Calvinism believing itself more conformable to what Jesus Christ 
has said, and Lutheranism to what the Apostles have done." 
Doubtless, as much as to say that Reform has for its basis the 
word of God, and Lutheranism the acts and usages of the Church. 
This distinction has much profoundness in it, and, generally speak- 
ing, even truth. 

But let us examine these differences more closely, without, 
however, attempting to enumerate them. Let us leave aside the 
specialties of doctrine, and in particular that free and eternal 
grace of God which is our most precious jewel. Let us neither 
speak at present of the election of the Father, nor of the manner 
in which the divine and human natures are united in the Man- 
God, nor of the nature of the Supper, nor of the doctrine of bap- 
tism, particularities the most generally known, and from which 
all others flow ; and let us attend specially to what belongs to 
the Church, for it is the Church which is every day becoming 
the greatest, the most exciting question. 

I. The Reformed Church lays down as the basis of Chris- 
tianity the Scriptural principle that the Word of God is the positive 
rule, the absolute standard, the only source of faith and Christian life, 
whilst Luther lays down as the oasis of his reformation a princi- 
ple not less vulnerable, but quite different ; faith, justification by 
faith. 

We believe it was well that these two bases were established 
at the same time. The combined action of Lutheranism and Re- 
form, in this instance, was admirable ; that of Lutheranism, in 
particular, fills us with the profoundest veneration. Not only did 
Luther and his friends exhibit the fundamental doctrine of justifU 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 249 

cation by faith in a manner still more marked than was done by- 
Reform, but, we must assert boldly, if they had not done it there 
would have been no reformation. Why was not the great Re- 
formation accomplished by the sects of the middle ages, who all 
started from the same principle as Reform? Undoubtedly for 
many reasons, but above all, perhaps, because they were not 
penetrated with sufficient power by that grand thought, that 
grand doctrine, of which, after St. Paul, Luther has been the most 
faithful promulgator. 

The Reformation, and before it early Christianity, possessed 
two fundamental principles : one formal, the principle of Reform, 
one material, the principle of Lutheranism. Reform requires in 
addition, faith ; and Lutheranism the Bible. But each of these 
two principles was confided separately and specially to the care 
of a faithful guard. These two distinct forces were destined to 
traverse the new world created in the sixteenth century ; and 
here already let us with gratitude admire the most perfect unity 
in the diversity of the work of God. 

We do not intend, however, to justify all the conclusions to 
which Luther carried his principle. Applying it to the Word of 
God with a hardihood which astonishes us, he declares in the 
Preface to his translation of the New Testament, that the Gospel 
of St. John, the Epistles of St. Paul, among others that to the Ro- 
mans, and the First of St. Peter, are in truth the marrow of the 
Scriptures, because they treat especially of faith ; he estimates 
the Gospels under the Epistles, and makes very little account of 
the Revelation of St. John, and pronounces, respecting an 
Epistle (that of St. James) a well-known saying, but one which I 
shall not repeat. Rationalism, which shakes or revokes all the 
canonical writings, has appeared, and in my opinion, could only 
appear in the Church of Luther. 

Swiss and French Reform never had to reproach itself with 
such a disrespectful walk. On the contrary, detaching itself from 
the authority of the Church, it ran to the sovereign authority 
which the Church itself has always proclaimed, that of the Holy 
Scriptures. " Abandoning," says one of its chiefs,* "the decrees 
of the Popes and Fathers of the Church, I came to the source it- 
self. My soul was there reinvigorated, and ever since, I firmly 
maintained this principle : the Holy Scriptures alone must be fol- 
lowed, and all human additions rejected." 

" The Church of Christ," said the Bernese pastors, in the famous 
dispute which decided the Reform in that Canton in 1528, "in- 
vents neither laws nor commandments beyond the Word of God. 
For that reason, all human traditions, called ecclesiastical, are only 
binding upon us in so far as they are founded on and commanded 
in that Word." And in the middle of the seventeenth century 
one of the reformed, a member of the Church of England, 
Chillingworth, the chancellor of the diocese of Salisbury, the 
whole of whose opinions we do not wish to justify, but who 

* Wolfgang Joner, 
11* 



250 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

having been a Papist, understood well what ought to be the 
essence of Reform, tittered this beautiful expression — " The Bible, 
the whole Bible, nothing but the Bible, such is the religion of the 
Reformed Christians." In reality, gentlemen, let us remember 
that the Church of England is Reformed — not Lutheran. It is so 
not only by the name which it bears, but also by its admirable 
Articles of Faith, and above all by the marked homage which it 
renders to the Word of God. 

This principle of Reform is older than Luther's views ; for not 
only was it that of the primitive Church, that of Wickliff, of the 
Vaudois, and of many other true Christians ; but it was also pro- 
claimed at the beginning of the Reformation in 1518, by Carlstadt, 
who in the theses in which he attacked Doctor Eck, says, " The 
text of the Bible r must be preferred not only to one or several 
doctors of the Church, but even to the authority of the entire 
Church." 

Everything in the Reformed Church exhibits this great principle, 
the exclusive authority of the Word of God. While the confes- 
sion of Augsburgh is silent upon the sole authority of the Scrip- 
tures, all the confessions of the Reformed Church are unanimous 
on this point.* 

Whilst the Lutherans hold by the apocryphal books, and some- 
times take their texts from them, the Reformed always distinguish 
them with care from the canonical books ; fight, if it be necessary, 
decisive battles on their account, as has but lately been done by 
the British Bible Society, urged on by Scotland, that eminently 
Reformed country ; and they regard it as a matter of the greatest 
importance to define exactly the extent of the Word of God, and 
to prevent any human words from creeping into it. 

Whilst in the text of the Lutheran Bibles no distinction is made 
between words human and divine, in all our translations of the 
Scriptures, on the contrary, such words as are not to be found in 
the original text are printed in italic characters, so that the reader 
may be able to distinguish, as far as that can be done in a transla- 
tion, between the word of man and the word of God. And it 
may be said that the version of the New Testament published 
some years ago at Lausanne, which is simply and purely a fac- 
simile of the text, is the product of the Spirit of Reform. Such a 
production could not, I believe, have been given forth by Luther- 
anism. 

Reform has not, however, as some in our days have pretended, 
presented the Bible as a volume sufficient of itself, no matter 
what doctrine might be drawn from it. 

" We are persuaded," says the Helvetic Confession, " that the 
sound knowledge of the true religion depends on the internal 
illumination of the Holy Spirit. We only regard as true and 
orthodox, those explanations which are derived from the Holy 
Scriptures in conformity with the analogy of faith and the rules of 
love." 

* Confess. Gallica, art. 5 ; Confessio Belgica, art. 5; Confessio Helvetica, 
art. 1 et 2 ; Confessio Anglicana, art. 6 ; Confess. Bohemica, art. 1 ; West- 
minster Confession (of Scotland), chap. i. 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 251 

Nor is it any more true, as some have asserted, that Reform has 
no kind of tradition. There is not an age, nor a generation, whose 
voice Reform does not wish to hear and by which it is not ready 
to profit — only it places always the great voice above all the 
little ones ; and in place of judging of the sense of Scripture by 
tradition, it judges, according to the principles of the Fathers, the 
truth of tradition by Scripture. 

Such, gentlemen, is our First principle, 

Reform is supremely the confessiou of the Bible. 

There never is to be found among us an esteem of men, of the 
servants of God in the Church, which resembles, as it has been 
appropriately designated, a Lutherolatry.* Writings are never to 
be seen with us like those published in Germany, with the titles : 
Luther a prophet — the second Moses— an Elias — a star — a sun. We 
have no other prophet than Jesus Christ, and no other sun than 
the Bible. And whilst for a long time all sorts of relics of Luther 
were preserved, we scarcely know where the great Calvin dwelt ; 
there is not even a little stone in our cemetery to mark the spot 
where his ashes repose, and four old trees, we saw five or six 
years ago, and which shade the ground where it is said the re- 
mains of this great servant of God were interred, have been cut 
down to give room ! . . It is doubtless an excess, but it pos- 
sesses great significancy. It recalls to our memory that Calvin 
forbade any monument to be erected to him, because he wished 
the Word of God alone to be honored in his Church. 

Yes, gentlemen, the rock of the Word — such is the basis of Re- 
form ; we know no other. Let other churches boast of their eccle- 
siastical foundation ; we, we shall only boast of our foundation in 
the Bible. And in that we believe ourselves more truly ecclesias- 
tical than those who add to the divine rock the moving sands of 
human traditions. We shall not abandon this foundation at any 
cost ; neither for the Pope nor for Luther. What do I say ? — not 
even for our Reformers. Cursed be the day in which the Reform- 
ed Church shall glory in being the Church of Calvin or Zwingle. 
The Bible— the Bible — the whole Bible — nothing but the Bible. 

We have seen at the beginning, that the principle confided to 
the Lutheran Church possessed in the days of the Reformation, an 
importance at least equal to that which God confided to the Re- 
formed Church. Which of these two is the most important in our 
days ? I dare not say, gentlemen. But I will say, however, that 
the principle of the Bible appears to me, at this hour at least, 
equally important with that of faith. In fact, what are the two 
great adversaries called forth to engage in the battle of the nine- 
teenth century ? Evangelism and Churchism. And how are we to 
put to silence Churchism with that cloud of human traditions and 
human works by which it is surrounded ? By the Bible. 

If we hesitate about the importance of the principle of Reform, 
shall we not be convinced by all those voices which at the pre- 
sent hour are calling out, The Church ! The Church ! and wish to 
put the visible Church above the Word of the Lord ? Shall we 

* French Lutherolatrie/a word formed upon the same principle as idol- 
ert'>— Tr. 



252 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

not be convinced by that proud pontiff who calls us Bible sectari- 
ans,* by that audacious mouth, speaking great things, as is said by 
Daniel the prophet, which has just uttered a cry from the depths 
of the magnificent halls of the Vatican, and who, stretching forth 
his arm with fear in the midst of his Apollos and Venuses, and of 
all those trophies of paganism by which he is surrounded, has just 
resounded throughout all Christendom that word of terror and 
alarm, The Bible ! the Bible ! What ! gentlemen ! would he who 
reveals secrets have declared to him in the watches of the night 
what was about to happen ? would he have shown him the Bible 
at the gate of Italy ? or above Rome, and already suspended in 
the air, the stone cut out without hands, which is destined to 
overthrow his ancient statue, and to lay it in the dust, in the midst 
of the ruins and debris which twenty centuries have strewn 
around it ? Ah ! gentlemen, if there ever was a time when Re- 
form aught to remain firm to its principle, it is the time in which 
we live. To conquer by the Bible or perish ; such is the futurity 
before us. 

One thing among others, gentlemen, alarms me — the state of 
England. Very recently, about a month ago, while the meetings 
connected with each particular church (English or Dissenting), 
filled the vast extent of Exeter Hall to the door — for the first time 
the meeting of the Bible Society was comparatively thinly attend- 
ed. I would not willingly deduce from that fact too* dark canclu- 
sions ; I know that there may be many different causes for it ; but 
I confess that on reading the account of it, a shivering seized me, 
and I recalled to memory with sadness the words, Ichabod ! Icha- 
bod i Is then thy glory departed ? 

II. If the Reformed Church places the word of God in such a 
positive manner above all human, writings, if it places it even 
above faith, it places, on the other hand, faith above the Church. 
One of the oldest doctors, Irenaeus of Lyons, has already noted the 
grand antithesis, where the Spirit is, there is the Church — this is the 
principal reform ; and where the Church is, there is the Spirit — this is 
the principle of Rome and of Oxford ; and also, though in a less de- 
gree, that of Lutheranism. A distinguished theologian who occu- 
pies in the University of one of our confederate cities, the chair 
instead of Strauss, I refer to Doctor Lange, has recently revived 
this antithesis, by turning it into a formula thus : the Church comes 
from Faith, or Faith comes from the Church. We do not hesitate, 
gentlemen, to assert, that these propositions are both true in a 
certain sense, if the visible church be not confounded with the in- 
visible ; for there is a wonderful difference between Faith and the 
Church. But let it be remembered that while Lutheranism places 
the emphasis upon the second, and says specially that, since the 
foundation of the Church, God does not make Christians but by the 
Church ; Reform, on the contrary, places the emphasis on the 

* Encyclical Papal Address, the day after the Nones of May, 1844. 
[Portions of this notorious document were quoted extensively in the Jour- 
nals of the day* — Tr.] 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 253 

first, and says, that faith alone, the faith which God has put into 
the heart, creates the Church. Thus, Reform does not say, the 
Church which is the assembly of the faithful exists first, and then 
each believer ; but that each believer exists first, and then the 
Church, which is the assembly of all. Lutheranism says, first 
the genus, and then the individual ; Reform says, first the individ- 
ual, and then the genus. I am quite ready to give reason for both ; 
but I add, that our duty is to maintain the principle of Reform. 

Wherefore, gentlemen? Because, if we say in an absolute 
sense, Faith comes from the Church, we establish by that the very 
principle which leads to the Inquisition, and which formerly created 
it. At the epoch of the Reformation, however, in a time when for 
ages preceding they had stretched upon the wooden horse, who- 
ever would not receive his faith humbly from the hands of the 
visible Church, it was necessary the renewed Church should raise 
the opposing principle to a lofty elevation. Reform is therefore 
here in diametrical opposition to Rome and also to hyper-Luther- 
anism. I name thus that extreme Lutheran orthodoxy, which, in 
the days oftheCalows and the Quenstedts, exaggerating the Lu- 
theran principle, resuscitated the scholastic method, and raised the 
doctrines of the Church and of the means of salvation above all 
others ; while, on the contrary, Reform, remembering that it is 
soul by soul that Christ saves his people, gives, has given, and 
will always give, the first place in Christian theology to what con- 
cerns the individual work, the regeneration, the justification, the 
conversion of the believer. 

Thus, gentlemen, what distinguishes Lutheranism is the impor- 
tance given to the Church, the whole Church, and most particu- 
larly to its ministers. It is not even entirely removed from that 
sacerdotalism which is the essence of Rome and of Oxford. The 
Lutherans are not afraid to give their pastors the name of 
priests ; and in a celebrated Practical theology, by one of the Ger- 
mans, whose memory is most precious to me, Claude Harm, the 
prevot of Kiel, one of the parties is entitled the Preacher, another 
the Pastor, but a third the Priest. 

Gentlemen, this much was still necessary for our unity. The 
individual element of Reform might have brought on a dis- 
solution and a dispersion of the members of the Church, which 
would have been fatal to the whole body, had it not been re- 
strained by the ecclesiastical element, that is to say, excuse the 
word, the gatherer of Lutheranism. In a like manner, the tenden- 
cy of this last might have led to stagnation, petrifaction, and 
death, had it not been restrained by the active, spontaneous, vivi- 
fying element of Reform. It is the union of these two forces, the one 
centripetal the other centrifugal, which has launched forth a new 
world into the universe of God, and which sustains it in its place. 

Shy 11 we then abandon our position as we are summoned to 
do ? God preserve us, gentlemen, from such a wicked attempt 
on the eternal decrees of his providence ! Let us not look to one 
side only ; I pray you let us look at both, and embrace the whole 
magnificence of the work of the Lord, If they be Lutheran, they 



254 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

are right, quite right, to appear Lutheran. Well then, but if they 
be Reformed, if they address the Reformed, let them not act, let 
them not speak as if they were Lutheran, as if they were speak- 
ing- to Lutherans, and thus contradict, arrest, destroy the element 
of Reform, even in the bosom of Reform. 

We shall not here enumerate all the excesses to which a too 
exclusive application of the Lutheran principle has led. Thence 
has arisen the usurpation of the clergy, the excessive authority 
of the pastor, or rather of the confessor (for among Lutherans 
each believer has a pastor to whom he gives this name), so that 
during the past century, these confessors, having become infidel, 
and the good Lutheran people being always humbly submissive, 
infidelity spread among these poor Churches with inconceivable 
facility. Some Lutherans have even asserted that we ought to 
keep strictly by the spiritual guide supplied by the competent 
ecclesiastical authority, even if he were a stranger opposed to 
the faith ! Never will Reformed Christians recognize such a 
maxim. They will ever place the Bible above the pastor, and 
should there be a decided disagreement between the one and the 
other, then, rather than allow themselves and their children to be 
led on to infidelity, they will separate themselves from their pas- 
tor, and take refuge under the Word of Christ. In so doing, they 
will carry the Church with them, and leave together the sect and 
the pastor. 

Further, gentlemen, from this Churchism arises the different 
meaning which Lutherans and Reformed attach to Church con- 
fessions of faith. The Lutherans regard them as rules of faith — 
normce normatce — " rules regulated" (by the Word) ; and they have 
even gone so far as to affirm that their authors possessed a cer- 
tain kind of inspiration, a deutero -canonical inspiration a§ the 
Roman Catholics say, when speaking of the Apocryphal books. 
Among the Reformed, on the contrary, the symbolical books or con- 
fessions are only regarded as the expression of the faith of the 
Church. Our Churches do not say to those who present them- 
selves to occupy their pulpits — believe ! but they say — do you be- 
lieve ? as these two men dear to us, Cellerier and Gaussen, set it 
forth twenty-five years ago, in the true spirit of Reform, when 
reprinting the Helvetic Confession at Geneva. And here, gentle- 
men, although to another amongst us this privilege by right be- 
longs, permit me, in passing, to lay with respect a flower upon 
the tomb of that faithful servant of Jesus Christ who was taken 
from us a few weeks ago, full of days, and "whose glory it will 
remain to have been the first, after a century of infidelity, to raise 
in our native country the standard of the Gospel and of Reform. 

I repeat it again. The Church comes from faith, before that faith 
comes from the Church. 

Such is our watchword. And who will dare to assert that the 
moment has arrived when we ought to lower this banner and 
range ourselves meekly under a standard presented to us by 
others, and which even the papacy itself raised many centuries 
ago ? If it be our brothers who believe that it ought to be done, 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 255 

we, we say it decidedly, we will not do it, convinced as we are, 
that even at the present hour, to maintain the principle of Reform 
is to save the Reformation. 

But, it may be said, if the maxim that faith comes from the 
Church, taken absolutely, leads to the Inquisition, the maxim that 
the Church comes from faith leads to separatism. 

We do not deny that that would result from the excess of the 
principle, and that this excess is seen in our days. But we deny 
that an abuse ever overturns a principle ; no, the principle of Re- 
form is not essentially separatist ; it does not necessarily flow 
from it that Christianity should be divided into thousands of sects. 
Doubtless it is a right possessed by the Christian, it is his duty, as 
was done at the epoch of the Reformation (and has been done 
since then), to separate himself from 'every community which 
does not confess Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, the only 
justification of his people. But to make separation a duty, con- 
stantly to be renewed, is, according to Reform, to trample under 
foot a numerous class of passages of the Word of God ; it is to 
call forth that which the apostle Paul orders to be rejected — 
" strifes, seditions, heresies," Gal. v. 20. 

" I say," thus speaks Calvin, " that we must not, under the pre- 
text of minute differences, separate ourselves lightly from a 
Church in which the fundamental doctrine of salvation is preserv- 
ed entire, and in which the sacraments are properly administered 
according to the institution of the Lord."— (Christian Institution, 
bookiv., chap, i.) 

However, if we must choose between uniformity and error on 
the one side, and diversity and truth on the other, Reform will not 
hesitate ; it ranges itself always on the side of truth ; truth is its 
grand aim. 

III. But, gentlemen, and this third characteristic affords a tri- 
umphant answer to the reproach of separatism which is made 
against Reform, it has always been distinguished by the Christian 
liberality with which it has never ceased to stretch forth the hand 
of brotherly love to every communion which has preserved the 
doctrines of salvation. So that, whilst the spirit of sectarianism 
has in various degrees animated other Churches, Reform has al- 
ways borne on its forehead the seal of true catholicity. 

I shall not speak here of the sectarian spirit of Rome, nor of Ox- 
ford ; these are facts too generally known ; but history compels 
us to recognize this spirit even in Lutheranism. The Lutherans, like 
the Roman Catholics, have always wished, not to unite with Re- 
form in the bands of brotherhood, but to absorb it. 

Exclusiveness is a character of Lutheranism. Here at least it will 
be said, what becomes of your unity? Yes, gentlemen, even this 
exclusiveness is necessary to it. It is one of the wheels which 
must enter into the construction of the admirable machine pre- 
pared by the hand of the great Architect three centuries ago. Ex- 
clusiveness is essential to the Church. Who was more exclusive 
than he who said ; " No one cometh to the Father but by me f and 



256 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

again ; " without me ye can do nothing." The Church ought to 
have a holy jealousy for the eternal truth of God ; for latitudinari- 
anism is its death. The history of all ages has demonstrated this 
fact, and nothing could demonstrate it more clearly than the his- 
tory of our own. This exclusiveness was what was confided to 
the charge of Martin Luther ; and although he deceived himself 
by carrying it out, not only with regard to fundamental dogmas, 
but also With regard to the different ways of understanding the 
same truth, although it was against our Reform that his thunders 
were directed, I love,, I admire Luther, even in his wanderings ; 
and I see in him not a furious Orestes, as he w^as named often, even 
by Bucer and Capito, but a Prometheus, who, wishing that man 
should raise his looks to heaven, 

— erectos ad sidera tollere vultus, 

and in order to animate him, having stolen fire on high, was pre- 
cipitated by his very elevation, and saw his entrails torn by 
cruel vultures. " Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall /" 
Luther believed that the corporeal fpresence of Christ was God's 
truth, and he went out of himself — for that ^truth. — Thou didst 
well, great Luther ! God teaches what thou didst not, to 
distinguish what is true from what is not true — what is essen- 
tial, from what is secondary; God gives us, what thou didst 
not know, to treat with mildness those who differ from us in opi- 
nion ! But God grant at the same time, as with thee, that the 
rights of the truth inspire us, and the zeal of God's house eat 
us up. 

However, here again I cannot justify everything ; for history is 
inexorable, and points out to us sad excesses. Here, gentlemen, 
is the most painful part of our task; for Luther is our father (I 
speak after the manner of men), a father whom we surround with 
the most profound veneration and the most filial affection ; the 
true Lutherans are our friends, our well-beloved brethren — they 
are of those with whom we one day hope to sit at the table in the 
kingdom of God. If then their opposition cause us to give forth a 
groan, let it not, at least, create any bitterness in our heart. Let 
us rather remember that the violence of controversy, far from 
showing us to be enemies, is a proof of the intimate bonds which 
unite us to Lutheranism ; for in all times, and on every subject, 
the more parties agree on essential points, the more are they borne 
away to disagreement on those which are secondary. 

It was Luther, that great man of God, who marched here, as 
everywhere, at the head of his Church. When, as early as 1527, 
the Reformed requested brotherly love and Christian concord, he 
replied, " Cursed, even to the lowest depths of hell, be that cha- 
rity and that unity." He himself relates to one of his friends, that 
in the conference, at Marbourg, convoked by the Landgrave of 
Hesse, for the purpose of uniting the Lutherans and the Reformed, 
Zwingle being moved, approached him, shedding tears before the 
whole assembly, and saying : " There are none on the face of all 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 257 

the earth with whom I so much desire to be one, as with the Wit- 
tembergians ;" and that he, Luther, repulsed the Zurich reformer, 
answering : " Your spirit is not our spirit !" and refused to call 
Zwingle and the Swiss his brethren ! 

Since that time the sectarian spirit has never ceased to exist in 
Lutheranism. In 1553, when the unfortunate Reformed were 
driven from London by the bloody Mary, they were, at the insti- 
gation of Lutheran theologians, repulsed cruelly in the dead of 
winter from the walls of Copenhagen, of Rostock, of Lubeck, and 
of Hamburg, where they sought an asylum. " Rather a Papist 
than a Calvinist," said they to the people, " rather a Mahometan 
than a Reformed." And on a house in Wittemberg may be read : 
" The sayings and writings of Luther are the poison of the pope 
and of Calvin." They called their cats and dogs by the name "of 
Calvin ; and published books with titles such as this ; " Proof that 
the Calvinists have 666 errors in common with the Turks ;" or 
this, " Short proof that the present (1721) attempt at union with 
the self-styled Reformed or Calvinists is in direct opposition to all 
the ten commandments, to all the articles of the apostles' creed, 
to all the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, to the doctrine of the holy 
baptism, to the power of the keys, to the holy Supper, and to the 
whole catechism." 

In a Lutheran Catechism, of the beginning of the seventeenth 
century, we read this question : " Dost thou believe then fully that 
the Calvinists, in place of the living and true God, honor and adore 
the devil ?" — answer ; " I believe it from the bottom of my heart." 
A Lutheran doctor, still living, a man to be admired for his piety 
and his zeal, applied to the Reformed the passage from St. Paul ; 
" Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." And you know that 
the Lutheran missionary societies have recently broken off from 
Bale, which, nevertheless, is nearer to Lutheranism than any other 
of the Reformed churches. What shall we say then in the face of 
these excesses ? We shall say with St. Paul ; " they have zeal 
for God without knowledge ;" and we shall add, smiling with 
Jerome of Prague, when he saw a peasant come loaded with a 
large bundle of wood, and place it at his stake : Sancta simpli- 
citas /* We shall also repeat ; Nevertheless, nevertheless, the Lu- 
therans are our brethren notwithstanding, and our well-beloved 
brethren ! 

Gentlemen, a spirit of conciliation, of union, of brotherhood, has 
animated our church in every age, and is, perhaps, its brightest 
ornament. Zwingle, (Ecolampadius, Calvin, Farel never ceased 
to stretch forth the hand of brotherhood to Luther and to all his 
friends. Calvin did not even fear to say, that in his eyes Luther 
was far above Zwingle ; — Nam si inter se comparantur, scis ipse quanto 
intervallo Lutherus excedat.} And he writes to Bullinger, the 25th 
November, 1544; " I understand that Luther pours out atrocious 

* Sacred simplicity. — Tr. 

t For if these two be compared, you yourself know by how much Luther 
excels. 



258 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

invectives on you and on us all. I dare scarcely request you to 
keep silence. But I supplicate you at least to remember what a 
great man Luther is, by what admirable qualities he is distin- 
guished, what courage, what constancy, what ability, what power 
of doctrine there is in him to beat down the kingdom of antichrist, 
and to propagate the knowledge of salvation. I say it, and have 
often repeated it, even though he called me Satan, I would not 
cease to honor him, and to acknowledge him as an illustrious 
servant of God." Gentlemen, behold these beautiful expressions. 
Let Reform never forget them ! And they are expressions of Cal- 
vin, of that man who is represented to us as so irritable and so 
proud. 

On several occasions propositions of peace, and projects of 
union, were brought forward on the part of Reform. The Swiss- 
French Reformed above all exhibited, in this respect, an unshaken 
perseverance. At the moment when the ultra-Lutherans, West- 
phal, Timann, von Eitzen, and many others, had made a violent 
discharge of their heavy artillery against the Reformed, Calvin and 
his friends appeared on the field of battle, in the midst of clouds 
of smoke, with the olive branch in their hand. The same year 
(1557) in which Theodore Beza .and Farel visited all the Swiss 
towns to excite public sympathy in favor of the Vaudois, who 
had been cruelly butchered in the valley of Angrogne, these two 
Reformed doctors, extending their charity out on one side and 
another, entered Germany, and there exhibited a confession of 
faith of the Churches of Switzerland and Savoy, with the intent to 
unite the whole Reformation, by showing to the Lutheran church- 
es that they also were brethren, companions in arms, in the war 
against antichrist. In 1631, the general synod of Charenton, near 
Paris, took the lead, and effected the union bypassing a resolution, 
in which it was declared, " that the churches of the confession of 
Augsburg being one in opinion with the other Reformed ones in 
all the essential articles of true religion, the members of their 
churches may present themselves at the holy table in the Reform- 
ed churches without any previous abjuration." In our own days, 
it has always been from the Reformed that the propositions and 
efforts to re-establish a true union in the church have come. 

And wherefore, gentlemen, is there this difference between Lu- 
theranism and Reform ? Doubtless it arises in a great measure, as 
far as regards Luther and the Lutherans, from the importance 
which they place in the corporeal presence of Jesus Christ in the 
Supper ; from that unshaken attachment to what they believe to 
be the truth, an attachment which we sincerely respect ; but it 
flows also, it must be said, from the difference which we have for- 
merly pointed out. The Biblical tendency of Reform ought to in- 
duce every member of the'Reformed Church to place little impor- 
tance on ecclesiastical differences, much on Bible truth, and con- 
sequently engage him to stretch forth the hand of brotherhood to 
every church, to every individual who has the word of the Bible. 
It is thus that from good principles good consequences will al- 
ways flow. 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 259 

Gentlemen, let us be faithful to this spirit of true catholicity. 
Let us not cease to recall, both to ourselves and to our brethren, 
these words of the apostles: " one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one 
body." Such is the special mission of Reform. 

IV. If Reform be possessed of great breadth, it is not less dis- 
tinguished by true depth. It is not only a Reformation of the 
faith like Lutheranism, it is also a Reformation of the life ; and thus 
it is more universally Christian. Lutheranism is certainly free 
from antinomianism : Luther himself fought against it. Never- 
theless, there is a great difference in the manner in which Luther- 
anism and Reform consider the law ; one of the principal of which 
is pointed out by a single and characteristic trait. In the Luther- 
an catechisms, the law, the ten commandments, are placed before 
faith, before the fundamental doctrines. Their use is to convince 
man of sin, and bring him to Christ. In the Reformed catechisms, 
on the contrary, the law (considered especially in the precepts of 
Christ and the apostles) is placed after faith, after the doctrines 
of salvation, as the expression of the gratitude of the child of God 
for the redemption given him by Christ. The law, according to 
Luther, only addresses itself to the unconverted, or at most to that 
portion of the faithful not fully converted. According to Calvin, it 
addresses itself also to the faithful, how believing soever they 
may be. 

Luther accomplished no Reformation of manners ; he did not 
even attempt it. Not certainly because he did not consider it im- 
portant. " How," wrote he to the Bohemian brethren, who ex- 
horted him to establish a discipline similar to theirs, " how is it 
possible that we, who live in the midst of Sodom, of Gomorrah, 
and of Babylon, can make that order, that discipline, that pure 
life to prevail." Luther thought that the Reformation of manners 
ought to flow simply and naturally from the influence of sound 
doctrine. 

Let us here remark again, gentlemen, how much the diversity 
of Lutheranism and of Reform is necessary to the unity, to the life 
of the Reformation. Who does not recognize a profoundly Chris- 
tian truth in the opinion that faith itself will form the manners ? 
Was it not necessary that after ages, in which the discipline of 
the Church had been the cause of numerous vexations, and of su- 
perstitions still more numerous, there should be a protest taken 
against such fatal errors ? Was it not necessary that alongside of 
the power of Reform, which here tends to bind, there should be 
another power in the renewed Church, tending unceasingly to en- 
large and relax ? Was it not necessary that, above all the exer- 
tions of man, and his efforts "to recall the wanderers and to 
watch over the heritages of the Lord," there should be a finger 
pointing to heaven, and a great voice proclaiming, " The good 
shepherd goes before his sheep, and his sheep follow him, be- 
cause they know his voice ? " 

If, however, the one of these things was necessary, the other 
was no less so. The work of Christian vigilance, of pastoral su- 



260 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

perintendence, was confided to Reform ; and, gentlemen, we are 
reformed. 

Zwingle set out from this principle : <• A universal re-establish- 
ment of life and manners is as necessary as a re-establishment of 
faith." Immediately, at Zurich, at Berne, at Bale, ordinances for 
regulating manners were issued, the women of unchaste life were 
banished, the boarding-houses and the hotels were suppressed ; 
aud when at a later period the pope, according to the ancient cus- 
tom, requested troops from Zurich, the IZurichers offered him as a 
compromise 2000 monks or priests. Would to God we sent at the 
present day no other Swiss to Rome ! In particular, they insisted 
on the manners of their ministers ; " as the word of truth is 
grave," says the ordinance of 1532, " the life of its servant ought 
also to be full of gravity." 

But it was in Geneva especially, that this principle was realized. 
Calvin, with the zeal of a prophet and the devotion of a martyr 
who submits himself unreservedly to the stern Word of God, ex- 
acted from the church under his care an absolute obedience. He 
strove hand to hand with the libertine party, and by the grace of 
God he remained the stronger. Geneva, formerly so corrupted, 
was regenerated, and displays a purity of manners, a Christian 
simplicity, which drew from Farel, after an absence of fifteen 
years, a shout of admiration, and these remarkable words : " I 
would rather wish to be the last in Geneva than the first anywhere 
else." And fifty years after Calvin's death Jean-Valentin Andreas, 
a fervent Lutheran, having passed some time within our walls, 
said, on his return ; " What I have seen there I shall never forget, 
and I shall ardently desire to attain it all my life. The fairest orna- 
ment of that republic is its tribunal of manners, which makes in- 
quiry every week into the disorders among the citizens. Games 
of cards and chance, oaths, blasphemies, impurity, quarrels, ha- 
treds, deceits, infidelities, drunkenness, and other vices are sup- 
pressed. Oh ! but this purity is a beautiful ornament of Christi- 
anity ! We (the Lutherans) cannot shed tears enough over that 
in which we are awanting. If the difference of doctrine did not 
withdraw me from Geneva, the harmony of its manners would 
have retained me there for ever." 

This character of morality was not confined to Switzerland and 
Geneva ; it spread into France, Holland, and Scotland, into every 
place where Reform penetrated. It still remains in some of these 
countries ; and a German author, M. Gobel, after mentioning that 
a modern traveller, also a German, could not find in the Scotch 
churches, which he visited, a single instance of adultery or divorce, 
and very little impurity, exclaims : " Let them compare with that 
the horrible immorality of Germany ; in the country as well as hi 
the towns let them only interrogate the pastors, and they will be 
filled with astonishment and fear." 

Alas ! gentlemen, we have no longer any reason to be proud ; 
these manners no longer exist. I do not say that there was not 
in this discipline an element fitted to bring on its destruction. On 
the contrary, I think that the part taken by the state in this order 
of manners necessarily induced its fall. I reject every kind of 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 261 

Christian discipline exercised by magistrates and police; but I 
believe that they might have laid aside the civil power, and still 
preserved the strength of the watch, by charity and the Word of 
God. 

They did not do so, and what is the result ? Senebier said ; 
" the prosperity of Geneva was for a long time the fruit of the 
wise laws of Calvin. The purity of our ancient manners was our 
boast; and it could be shown that one of the causes of our mis- 
fortunes is the diminution of their influence. Thus Rome was 
lost when her censors could no longer make themselves heard, 
and Sparta fell with the reputation of those who were charged 
with the care of making her virtue respected." If Senebier spoke 
thus in 1786, what shall we say at the present hour ? 

Ah ! gentlemen, who could not understand what was said by 
Montesquieu, that the Genevese ought to bless, to celebrate the 
day of Calvin's birth, and of his arrival among them ? But what 
was understood by the profoundest politician of the eighteenth 
century, the Genevese have not comprehended ; instead of cele- 
brating the birth of the Reformer, they celebrate and cause their 
children to celebrate the birth-day of a famous sophist, an ardent 
soul, a man of inimitable talent, but who sent to the foundling 
hospital the sad fruits of his libertinism! They are raising a 
magnificent statue to Jean Jacques, and they raise none to Calvin. 
" We shall do it in Edinburgh," said a Scotch doctor to me last 
year; " it is Edinburgh," added he, " which is now the metropolis 
of Reform." 

Gentlemen, the re -establishment of faith and manners in Reform, 
that is the statue which Calvin, that extraordinary and modest man, 
would have desired. Will it not be raised to him ? And if, as in 
Saxony in the days of Luther, a too strict rule be at present inap- 
plicable, let us not the less remember, that whoever asks for the 
discipline of manners, is in the spirit of Reform, and that it is the 
most sacred duty, not only of the ministers, but of all reformed 
Christians, to strive that those who call upon the name of the Lord, 
be " blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the 
midst of a crooked and perverse nation," Phil. ii. 15. 

V. This brings us, gentlemen, to the fifth character. Reform 
possesses, both in its principle and its course, something decided, 
of which Lutheranism is destitute. The principle of Lutheranism 
was, to preserve in the Church everything that is not condemned by the 
word of God ; while that of Reform was, to abolish in the Church 
everything that is not prescribed by the word of God. Lutheranism is 
a Reformation of the Church, Reform is a renewal of it, or the 
difference may be indicated, if desired, by merely changing an 
accent: Lutheranism is a Reformation, Reform is a Re-ybraation. 
Lutheranism took the Church as it was, and contented itself with 
effacing its blemishes. Reform went to the foundation of the 
Church, and built its edifice upon the living rock of the apostles. 
Whilst Luther, when he heard what Carlstadt was doing, writes ; 
" we must keep in the middle path," and rise up against those 



262 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

who overthrow the images, Carlstadt, the first Reformed, from 
1521 boldly reforms the Church of Wittemberg, of which he was 
prevot, abolishes in it the mass, the images, confession, fast days, 
and every abuse of popery. Zwingle, almost at the same time, 
acts in a like manner at Zurich. And for what was done at Ge- 
neva, I shall content myself with transcribing the inscription which 
was for nearly three centuries, from 1536 to 1798, fixed upon the 
walls of our Hotel de Ville, and which expresses better than we 
can do the marked character of Reform. It ought to have been 
restored since the Jubilee of 1835, and placed in the Church of 
St. Peter ;* but that has not been done. Here it is : — 

"In the year 1536, the tyranny of Roman antichrist hav- 
ing BEEN OVERTHROWN, AND ITS SUPERSTITIONS ABOLISHED, THE 
MOST HOLY RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST WAS RE-ESTABLISHED HERE 
IN ITS PURITY, AND THE CHURCH IN A BETTER ORDER, BY THE EX- 
TRAORDINARY favor of God. And at the same time, the city 
itself having repulsed and put its enemies to flight, was 
freed, not without a marked interposition of providence. 
The Genevese council and people have raised this monument, 
that the memory of these events might be perpetuated, and 
that a testimony of their gratitude to god might be handed 
down to their posterity." 

What has been the result of this difference of character between 
Lutheranism and Reform ? 

Two very distinct courses, and which, we notice here again, 
have each their good side. The course of Lutheranism is de- 
fensive, successive ; the course of Reform is offensive, conquer- 
ing. To Lutheranism belongs the principle of resistance, of pas- 
si veness ; to Reform the principle of movement and of life. 

Gentlemen, is it necessary to remind you how important these 
two tendencies are to the prosperity of the church ? Must I in- 
sist upon this, that in every well-constituted community, the im- 
mobility of principles must be united to the mobility of life ? 

There is not even a family in which two opposing tendencies 
are not to be found. The decided and imposing authority of the 
father must be accompanied by the more conciliating and more 
indulgent tenderness of the mother. The same in a political 
state, the conservative and the liberal element must always ex- 
ist. An exclusive immobility leads to violence, to hatred, to 
revolution ; has not Charles X. taught us this much ? An exces- 
sive mobility leads to fickleness, superficiality, agitation, pride ; is 
there not a nation which shows us this ? These two elements are 
so indispensable to the life of the whole body, that if by any 
means you should destroy one of them, it would re-appear im- 
mediately after. In France, in 1830, the old conservatives being 
thrown out, those who, during fifteen years, had played the part 
of liberals, became conservatives themselves. 

And what is necessary in the state, what is necessary even in 
every family, you do not wish in the church ! You wish by 
some revolution to eject one of these elements ! Impotent con- 

* The Church in which Calvin preached.— Tr. 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 263 

spirators ! — even were you able to destroy the element of Reform, 
you would be compelled to become Reformed yourselves ! 

But, doubtless, Lutheranism suffered in the sixteenth century, 
for having pushed its principle to an extreme. Divided between 
the Bible and the church, between what it wished to take away, 
and what it wished to preserve, it had a difficult and uncertain 
course to pursue ; its Reformation was never able to reach the 
extent to which its aim was at first directed, and Luther, whose 
character was so full of gaiety and joyous humor, spent at last 
days of sadness and full of sorrow. While Reform, having a pre- 
cise and definite aim — the Bible, — nothing but the Bible, pro- 
ceeded with power ; and Calvin, Farel, Knox, Zwingle even, 
died with joy and in triumph. What death was that of Calvin, 
and what adieux were his ! 

Lutheranism, paralyzed from the beginning of its existence, 
saw, after the death of Luther, conservation changed, in its bosom, 
into stagnation. 

The Lutheran princes, unfaithful to the glorious memory of 
the illustrious diet of Spires (1529), opposed all extension of Pro- 
testantism, and were but too well seconded by their theologians. 

Now also, a new society, which we salute with affection and 
respect, the society of Gustavus Adolphus, faithful to this Lu- 
theran principle, endeavors, it is true, to sustain the falling Pro- 
testant churches, but declares itself opposed to all exertion be- 
yond recognized Protestantism, to all proselytism. 

Such is not the case with Reform. It marches, it advances, it 
progresses, it gains everywhere. Our Evangelical Societies of 
Paris and Geneva, with their essentially proselyte character, and 
all our missionary societies, are the fairest fruits of the spirit of 
Reform. 

But it is especially in the relation which these two churches 
bear to papacy that this distinguishing character is shown. Luther- 
anism, which is offensive towards Reform, remains defensive towards 
the pope ; whilst Reform, on the contrary, stretching forth the 
hand of brotherhood^to Lutheranism, takes openly^and courageously 
the offensive against Rome. At Augsburg, in 1530, Melancthon 
said to the cardinals, that there was only a small line of separa- 
tion between him and the pope, but that an immense abyss 
separated him from Zwingle !* Lutheranism, with which the 
visible church possesses so much weight, could capitulate with 
Rome. Reform, which only wishes the Bible, would run tilt 
against her. Wherever, also, superstitious fears exist of a con- 
flict with papacy, wherever|extreme circumspection prevails, the 
idea, for instance, that prudence forbids Protestants 'to stretch 
forth the fraternal hand to priests who reject the pope and confess 
Jesus Christ, there, perhaps, hyper-Lutheranism will be found, 
but not certainly the spirit of Reform. 

Inspired by a holy love for souls and with a profound conviction 

* Dogma nullum habemus diversum ab ecclesia Romana. Parati sumus 
obedire ecclesiae Romanae, (Legato Pontifico Melancthon.) Ambiunt 
(reformati) colloquium cumThilippo ; sed hie hactenus recusavit. (Brentius.) 



264 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

that Rome leads them to destruction, Reform, three centuries ago, 
seized the sword of the word, and began, with the papal power, a 
war of life or death. Notwithstanding the constant and violent 
opposition of themost'powerful European monarchs, notwithstand- 
ing the redoubled efforts of that hierarchy which drew the world 
after it, Reform, like little David, advanced against this gigantic 
Goliath, with nothing in its scrip but the well- smoothed pebbles of 
the word of God, and it has conquered through the name of the 
Eternal of armies. Unquestionably, I am grateful for all that has 
been done by Christian princes, and especially by the immortal 
Gustavus Adolphus. But that was rather a matter of princes and 
perhaps the work of policy ; with us it is rather a matter of the 
faithful, the work of faith. It was Reform which saved the Re- 
formation in disastrous times, and it will still save it in the days 
in which we live. 

It is true, that it has saved it at the expense of its blood. 
Whilst the Lutheran church scarcely possesses a single martyr, 
our churches count them by thousands, and their fidelity has ac- 
quired for them the respect and admiration of the best of Luther- 
ans, the tender soul of the Spencers and Zinzendorfs. In Swit- 
zerland, in Scotland, in England, and especially in Belgium and 
France, the inquisition, the papacy, their poniards and their 
scaffolds have covered the soil of the Bible with the bodies of the 
slain. Reform has seen it, but it has not bowed its head. It has 
seen its children deliver up their blood with joy, looking to Jesus 
Christ, and it has held on its course. 

A mandate, written in the name of a priest who styles himself 
Count of Lausanne and prince of the holy Roman empire (although 
the holy empire ceased to exist at the beginning of the present 
century), has dared to say quite recently in this city, "The 
pontiffs and priests of the Church (of Rome) have been continually 
and everywhere persecuted from the times of the apostles till the 
present day. The holy Pontiffs, the holy priests of Jesus Christ, 
laboring from the origin of Christianity for the conversion and 
sanctification of souls, have never employed any means that the 
gospel, conscience, and reason unite in condemning."* 

This is in verity too strong, and a sigh escapes us. How then ! 
you dare to hold such language in this city, in the midst of a 
population which is but formed, so to~ speak, from the debris 
which escaped from your wheels, your wooden horses, and your 
knives ! We are accustomed to the effrontery of Rome, but we 
have never had such a specimen as this. 

Forgetful people ! from whom, tell us, came the bloody appli- 
cation of the passage, Constrain them to enter ? By whose orders 
were shed those torrents of Vaudoisian and Albigensian blood, 
which inundated the middle ages ? Who, if it was not your Pope, 
when in the night of August 24tb, 1572, in the midst of nuptial 
rejoicings, the old Coligny had been butchered on his knees, and 
with him fully sixty thousand of the Reformed, who caused the 
bells of Rome to be rung, the cannon of the castle of St. Angelo 

* Mandate of the Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva, May 17th, 1844. 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 265 

to be fired, and medals to be struck ? Who was it who, in 1685, 
overturned in France sixteen hundred temples, slaughtered thou- 
sands and thousands of Protestants, and forced the remainder to 
flee ? In our own days, who is it that closes almost every Roman 
Catholic country to the preaching of the Gospel ? Who con- 
strains the poor inhabitants of the Zillerthal to quit the country of 
their fathers ? Who in Austria makes laws against conversion to 
Protestantism ? Who condemns to prison that Maurette who last 
winter contended with the priests charged to read your mandate 
from the pulpit ? Who, two months ago, in a neighboring frontier 
village, distant a league from this, caused a poor peasant to be 
seized, thrown into a dungeon, and then condemned to the gal- 
leys, who had committed no other crime save that of reading the 
Bible ? Who, not in the fourteenth nor fifteenth century, but a 
few weeks ago, condemned to death Maria Joaquina for having 
denied the duty of worshipping the Virgin and the doctrine of 
transubstantiation ? And you talk of Rome as a persecuted church I 
And you say she never employed other means than those of con- 
science and gentleness ! Forgetful people ! go ! go ! when you 
persecute you are quite in harmony with yourselves. Persecu- 
tion must be and in truth is one of your dogmas. No one shall 
take away that opprobrium from you, and no one shall deprive 
u£ of this glory. Your church is the church of executioners ; ours 
the church of martyrs. 

VI. I only take one other character from among all those that 
still remain. It is derived from the one we have just described ; 
the difference which exists between our two communions as to 
the liberty of the Church and the State. 

Luther was an humble and submissive monk, even according 
to his adversaries ; and although he possessed great powers of 
speech, he kept always, in presence of the emperor and of his 
prince, within the limits of the most perfect obedience. And even 
in 1530, that same Luther, who in 1522 wrote a book " Against 
the state of the pope and the bishops falsely called spiritual," 
showed that he, as well as Melancthon, was quite disposed to 
recognize the bishops, if only the bishops would recognize the 
Gospel. Luther's reformation was essentially monarchical as 
regards the state, hierarchical as regards the church. The people 
never appear in it but to receive modestly what the authorities 
give them. Luther, in short, defined, it is true, the two swords 
clearly enough — the power of the state and that of the church ; 
but after his day, and even while he was still living, the Lutheran 
princes, clothed with territorial episcopacy, absorbed all the 
ecclesiastical liberties and independence. 

Is it necessary, gentlemen, to remark, that Lutheranism pos- 
sesses, in this character, an excellence which is peculiarly its 
own? The car which bears the human mind stood, in the six- 
teenth century, at the top of a rapid descent. Reform placed 
itself boldly in the seat; seized the reins with one hand, and 
with the other smacked its whip, and the car started. What was 
12 



266 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

then required to prevent a fail to the bottom of the mountain, a 
terrible catastrophe ? There was required, gentlemen (excuse a 
common word), a drag ; which was Lutheranism. By this means 
its course would be swift but sure ; and if the misfortune which 
was feared has happened, it is because Lutheranism and Reform, 
both the one and the other, lost, during the last century, their 
essential and intrinsic character ; it is because the drag has been 
taken away, and the driver precipitated from his seat. 

Here then is a new difference between Reform and Lutheranism ; 
and it was not without reason that Bossuet said, before all the 
court of Louis XIV., " The Calvinists are bolder than the Lutherans" 

Reform, from its very commencement, was essentially democra- 
tic. Switzerland, where Reform developed itself, is an assemblage 
of little nations in which the people is sovereign. It was from the 
people that the Reformation emanated ; and when the councils op- 
posed it (as in Bale, for example), it was the people who made it 
triumphant. Political rights and liberties trampled under foot by 
the papacy, lightly abandoned by Lutheranism, are zealously re- 
claimed by Reform. The reformation of the free German cities, 
now Lutheran, was the most brilliant act of their autonomy ; but 
in making this lofty effort, they lost their energy and their liberty, 
and fell from that time under the influence or the power of for- 
midable neighbors. 

But, on the contrary, wherever Reform comes it preserves the 
ancient liberties, and adds others that are new. If the lot of Ge- 
neva, a free imperial city, be so different at the present hour from 
that of Augsburg, Nuremburg, and many other cities, formerly free 
and imperial as well as she, whence does it come, I pray ? His 
tory shall supply our answer. Calvin, in 1559, at the time when 
Geneva expected to be besieged, put his own hand to the work to 
raise a new bastion. If Geneva was capable of maintaining its 
independence for three centuries against formidable enemies, it is 
due to that same spirit that animated Calvin. Everywhere this 
opposition between Lutheranism and Reform is to be met with. 
And in our own days, for example, when in 1830, at the time of 
the fall of Charles X., the Christians of France and other countries 
rejoiced, and the Christians of Germany were astonished and of- 
fended, it perhaps arose altogether from the one being Reformed, 
and the other Lutheran. 

This opposition has for a long time, gentlemen, furnished Ro- 
man Catholics with a common field for invective against Reform. 
They are welcome to it. Let us just call to memory the constant 
agitations of the popish states, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Bel- 
gium, Ireland, France, and three days ago the combat of Trient* 
(Valais). Let us recall to memory the inquietude, the restlessness, 
the sighs of the Lutheran states of Germany. Let us remember 
the powerful and fruitful liberties enjoyed at the present hour by 
the Reformed states, Scotland, Holland, England, America, and 
some cantons of Switzerland. And if in America the peaceful city 

* Referring to the late revolution in the Valais, — Tr. 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 267 

of William Penn, the city which was formerly that of brotherly 
love, be now stained with bloody excesses, whence does it arise ? 
I do not say that the Protestants there are without blame. On the 
contrary, I grant that the salt has there,. without doubt, lost its sa- 
vor. iBut, nevertheless, it is impossible not to perceive that the 
disasters of Philadelphia are the act by which the papacy of Ire- 
land heralds its invasion. 

As respects political liberty the papacy is in a state of revolu- 
tion ; Lutheranism is in a state of fermentation ; Reform is in a 
state of possession. 

Let it not be said that if there are democratic sympathies in Re- 
form, it is therefore unfavorable to monarchies. That were to 
make a strange anachronism, and to reason in the style of Louis 
XIV. Are not the greatest minds at present of opinion that de- 
mocracy, under one form or another, is the futurity towards which 
the nations are tending. Now, Reform being possessed of light 
and strength fitted to guide and moderate democracy, as M. de 
Tocqueville himself alleges, is it not therefore, henceforth, requi- 
site for the prosperity of states ? To reject it now, would be the 
same as when a vessel is setting sail, and about to launch out into 
the great waters, to turn off its seamen, to dismiss its pilot, throw 
down its compass, and break its helm. " Let us moderate demo- 
cracy by means of religion," says M. de Tocqueville. Reform is 
the golden bridle, powerful, yet easily managed, which the di- 
vive hand has prepared for the mouth of liberty. The real pacific 
democracy is Reform. You will find it nowhere else. 

But if the reformed church gives liberty to the state, it arises 
from being itself possessed of it. The legislation and government 
of the church with it do not proceed from certain personages pla- 
ced by office originally above the rest, but from the whole of the 
church, from the suffrages of the faithful, so that if any are raised 
above the others, it is only as organs and delegates of the church. 
Every necessary precaution is taken to prevent domination from 
creeping in. " Let the moderator have the presidency, but no- 
thing more (say the ordinances of Schaffhausen), lest from a demo- 
cracy it should become ^monarchy." 

Reform does not establish a church of the clergy, it establishes 
(but let us comprehend well the meaning of the words), it estab- 
lishes a church of the people ; not of the peonle of the world, but 
of the people of God ; that is to say, a church composed essen- 
tially, though not exclusively, of all the grave and holy men, 
whose thoughts have been led captive to the will of Christ. 

Finally, gentlemen, as to the independence of the Church, I do 
not assert the complete separation from the State ; that is a ques- 
tion upon which I shall give no opinion in this address ; as to the 
independence of the church, that is not less essential to our Re- 
form. Zwingle who had never encountered the slightest hinder- 
ance from the state, who had, on the contrary, received from it 
every species of support, regarded the church, we must acknow- 
ledge, as a society inclosed within the state, protected, tended, and 
to a certain extent governed by the state. But if Zwingle had liv- 



268 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

^d in a time when the state made war on Christian truth in favor 
of papacy and socinianism, do you think he would have made the 
Church submissive to it ? No, gentlemen, he would have sepa- 
rated the church from it. 

In fact, already before the time of Calvin, the synod of Berne of 
1532 established that the state ought not to interfere in religious 
matters, except as to what regards external order. " But as to 
what concerns the work of grace, that is not within the power of 
man, and is not held of any magistrate. The state ought not to 
meddle with consciences ; Jesus Christ our Lord is the only mas- 
ter of them. If the magistrate mix himself up with the gospel, he 
will just make hypocrites." 

But it was Calvin especially, the chief of our Reform, who 
claimed for the church autonomy, autocracy, and independence. 
He was not, like Zwingle, born a citizen of a Republic, but the 
subject of a monarchy, and as such he felt himself, less than he, an 
integral part of the state. The organization of a monarchy besides 
did not permit, so much as that of a republic, that confusion of 
church and state realized by Zwingle. 

Luther was a German, Zwingle a Swiss; but nationality only 
occupied a secondary place in the great soul of Calvin ; Christ 
and the church were all for him. He was neither a Frenchman, 
a Swiss, nor a Genevese ; he was of the city of God. In quitting 
France, he sacrificed whatever he had that was most precious : 
and he never returned to the abode of his former idols to raise 
them anew. Undoubtedly he loved Geneva, the country of his 
adoption, but the great nationality reigned supreme over all less- 
er ones. Nothing was more insupportable to him than national 
egotism. Turning away from those narrow compartments in 
which each one wishes to encase himself, his eagle eye fixed itself 
unceasingly on the grand whole of the church. His colleagues of 
the cantons strove to form a national Swiss church, but even 
that attempt appeared too mean to his capacious mind ; and pass- 
ing beyond rivers and mountains, he aspired unceasingly after the 
church universal. He knew no nation but the nation of holiness, 
and no people but the people of God. 

His principle even, which bound him to Bible and apostolical 
antiquity, carried him back to the first three ; centuries of the 
church, and caused him to regard the independence of the church 
as its normal condition. How, besides, when Calvin saw the state 
in France united to the Roman hierarchy and roaring like a fero- 
cious beast against the humble Galilean confessors, would he not 
feel constrained to put the church beyond the reach of its assaults'? 
Moreover, he did not only cast aside the oppression of Francis I. 
or Henry II., but also the protection of reformed magistrates, which 
filled him with lively apprehension. He perceived in the con- 
nection which existed between the church and the state at Zurich 
and at Berne, something servile which hindered [the movements 
of the church and threatened its holy liberty. " I do not intend 
that we shall be so servilely bound," writes he in 1557 to Bullin- 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 269 

ger, who insisted on the authority of the magistrate. Non puto 
tarn serviliter nos constrictos teneri. 

Calvin then threw far from him the idea of causing the Church 
to be governed by the state, even by the state evangelized. He 
wished it to form a community sui generis, in which each member 
would have a certain share in the government. He made each 
church a little democracy, and t from the reunion of all these 
churches a confederation. 

Calvin's spirit, as to the independence of the church, was, per- 
haps, nowhere so powerfully manifested as in the canton Vaud 
(Pays de Vaud). The church, in that beautiful country, found 
itself between Berne and Geneva as it were between two mutu- 
ally counteracting forces. The spirit of liberty and independence 
was blown towards it from the walls of Geneva by the powerful 
mouth of Calvin, whilst the military republic of Berne, wishing to 
maintain that strength in the state which for several ages consti- 
tuted its greatness, applied itself with nervous arm to tighten 
firmly the bands and the forms in which the state intended to hold 
the church. Berne could not admit any part whatever of the pub- 
lic power to be withdrawn from the powerful hands of the 
state, not even in things religious. Thus, the Vaudean Church 
claiming the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, the state was 
afraid if it granted that power, it would, in some sort, recognize 
the church's independence. The state was quite agreeable to 
have discipline, but intended to exercise it itself, and that by its 
own officers.* 

However, Viret, Theodore Beza, and a great number of other 
ministers, maintained the principles of independence in the Pays 
de Vaud. The ties with Berne became more relaxed every day, 
and all looks were turned towards Geneva. The two great systems, 
brought into the presence of each other, rendered a crisis immi- 
nent. " A rupture was inevitable," says the wise Hnndeshagen, 
now professor at Berne, in his history of the conflicts of that 
church. Thus, gentlemen, in the sixteenth century, two hundred 
and fifty years before its emancipation, the independence of the 
. church was on the point of conferring on the people political in- 
dependence. But the bearf was strongest. He descended roaring 
from his mountains ; and Viret, Theodore Beza, Marlorat, Merlin, 
and about forty of their brethren, all friends of the liberty of the 
church, were compelled to flee from the country in which they 
had with so much joy announced the gospel of Christ, and go to 
enrich Geneva and the Reformed Churches of France with their 
piety and their light. The Free Church of Scotland has been able 
to remain even on the field of combat, but the Free Church of Vaud, 
crushed in its most noble members by the mailed hand of the 
powerful republic, was compelled to quit its smiling towns, its 
valleys, and its mountains — and the bond Church remained there 
alone. All classes of the pastors were shut up for two days under 

* Reformation Ordinance of the Seigneurs of Berne (Voir Ruchat, 1837, 
vol. iv., p. 522, Pieces Justificatives.) 
t The arms of Berne.— Tr. 



270 LUTHER AND CALVIN. 

the bars and bolts of the castle of Lausanne, and no one could 
clear the gates of that prison, except by engaging to compear at 
the first citation. And at the same time the state deprived all 
classes of the right, in future, of convoking either class or confer- 
ence. Vaud thus witnessed the complete triumph of the state 
over the church. Order reigned at Warsaw. That order, which 
succeeded one of the most memorable contests of Christianity, 
has continued for nearly three centuries ; and the influence of the 
Bernese principles has during this lapse of time been so infiltrated 
into that beautiful country, that if here or there the eloquent voice 
of, the Virets or the Bezas makes itself heard from the midst of the 
ruins, in order to claim the rights of the church of Jesus Christ, 
it is looked upon as a strange thing ! These accents, three centu- 
ries old, are regarded as modern words, and as theories of the day. 

Undoubtedly, gentlemen, there was still in Calvin's system some 
connection between the state and the church, but so little was it 
essential, that two years ago, since our revolution, some voices 
only required to recall to people's remembrance the principles of 
Reform, to bring it to the verge of being severed. Let us then un- 
derstand perfectly, if there be at present in some minds a revert- 
ing to petty nationality, if there be some honorable Christians who 
preach blind submission, who oppose even what some citizens, 
some of the faithful, respectfully ask by petitions, the liberty which 
has been sworn to them, and which even the constitution of the 
country guarantees them ; such a way of acting is an invasion of 
Lutheranism, even a false Lutheranism, and a considerable devi- 
ation from the Reformed principles. 

Gentlemen, liberty in the affairs of the church and in those of 
the state ; such is our antiquity; our custom ; our tradition ; — we 
are the conservators of them. To deprive Reform of this noble 
love of liberty would be to revolutionize it. 

It is time to conclude. 

"The catholic church,'? says Lange, " is the church of the 
priests ; the Lutheran that of the theologians ; the Reformed that 
of the faithful," We accept of this definition, remarking, however, 
what is certainly the idea of Lange, that even the catholicity of 
the Reformed church causes it to assign, whether to doctors or 
pastors, the place which belongs to them. 

If it be required to find a motto for Reform, what, gentlemen, 
would you inscribe upon its banner ? This is what I would choose : 

Above : — 

Grace. 
; Below : — 

Catholicity, Liberty. 

As regards the doctrine of Grace. 

Grace in all its fulness, from everlasting to everlasting, from the 
first movement of the regenerated till the full accomplishment of 
his salvation. 

Then, as regards the church, catholicity and liberty. 

Catholicity. Unquestionably the Reformed church is possessed 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 271 

of that. A church which has never ceased to make the grand 
Christian union one of its most vehement desires, one of its most 
cherished aims. It possesses catholicity in a higher degree than 
the church styling itself Catholic, which has never ceased to cut 
off from its communion whoever was imbued with some truth 
and life, even a Jansenius and almost a Fenelon. 

But if grace be the sun of Reform, and catholicity one of its 
poles, liberty is the other. Catholicity as regards the whole, 
liberty as regards the individual. Individuality and catholicity 
are equally essential to it, and to raise the one in opposition to the 
other is to cease to be Reformed. 

Thus, gentlemen, in the day when the Lord shall assemble his 
army in holy pomp, in the day when the body of Christ shall re- 
unite its scattered members, the Reformed church will come 
bringing as a gift to the New church these three things which 
shall endure ; Grace, Catholicity, Liberty, What other church will 
be able to present so fair an offering ? 

Let us be then, gentlemen (this is my last sentence, the conclu- 
sion of this Address), let us be then intelligent, faithful, and 
unshaken sons of Reform ; I do not say only in this school, only 
in Geneva, but in Lausanne, but in Neuchatel, but in the whole of 
Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland, England, Germany, 
America. The destinies of the church depend upon it. 

Shall we forget our fathers, their principles, their struggles, 
their faithfulness, their blood ? Whilst they took so much care to 
preserve Reform intact, in presence not only of the papacy, but 
also of all secondary shades of opinion, shall we lightly abandon 
the precious characters of their faith ! Shall we walk up and 
down upon their graves 9 trampling their bones under foot and 
scattering their ashes ? 

Undoubtedly, Lutheranism has its task as we have ours. Un- 
doubtedly, Lutheranism and Reform should march on hand in 
hand under the standard of Christ to the conquest of the world. 
But that we may render to our ally the service he has the right 
to expect from us, it is necessary we should be ourselves. And 
are we so ? 

Ah ! gentlemen, he who addresses the awakening letters to 
the seven churches of Asia, makes us hear his voice. When he 
sees how many there are " whose hands are weakened and whose 
knees are out of joint," he cries to Reform; Hold fast that which 
thou hast, that none may take away thy crown. Guard that good thing 
which has been confided to thee by the Holy Spirit dwelling in thee ! 

Reform, gentlemen, is the church of the present time, die Con- 
fession der Gegenwart,* as Lange calls it. To Reform the Lord has 
specially committed the multitude of nations. Let it advance, 
then, freely, courageously in the world ; let it there accomplish 
the holy work committed to it by the Eternal ; and as the sixteenth 
century was signalized by a great separation, let the nineteenth 
be signalized through the prayers and the labors of Reform by a 
great union. J will make thee a pillar in the temple of my God. 

* The Confession of the present time. — Tr, 



PUSEYISI EXAMINED. 



fPUSEYISM EXAMINED, 



GENEVA AND OXFORD 

"Two systems of doctrine are now, and probably for the last time, in conflict — the Ca- 
tholic and Genevan." 

Dr. Pusey's Letter to ike Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Gentlemen : 
I am in the practice, at the opening of the course of lectures 
in our School, to call your attention to some subject peculiarly- 
appropriate to the wants and the circumstances of the times. 
Several such subjects now present themselves to our consideration. 

And first of all, there is one which is appropriate to every year 
and to every day, it is that which concerns the very nature of 
this school. It has none of those temporal sources of prosperity, 
of endowment, and of power, which nourish other institutions ; 
it can exist only as a plant of God ; it can be nothing excepting 
just as the Spirit of God — like the sap — diffuses itself, without 
cessation, through the principal branches, and through even the 
least of its twigs ; adorning the whole tree with leaves, with flow- 
ers, and with fruits. Gentlemen, Professors, and Students, we are 
those twigs and branches. Oh ! that we may not be barren and 
withered branches ! 

There is another subject which begins greatly to occupy the 
most distinguished minds ; it is the question "whether the Church 
ought to depend upon the civil government, or ought to have a 
government of its own, having no dependence, in the last resort, 
but upon Christ and his Word. Without entering here into this 
important subject, I would indicate two opposite movements, 
which are at this moment simultaneously taking place under our 
eyes in the world ; the one in theory, the other in practice. On 
the one hand, an admirable work, the production of one of the 
most profound thinkers of our age, Mr. Vinet,* leads some reflect- 
ing minds to acknowledge the independence of the Church ; and, 
on the other, many people are uniting themselves with new zeal 
around the institutions of the government ; so that there are all 
around us convictions and movements which seem to carry away 
the people of our day by contrary currents. It is thus that a stu- 
dent of Geneva has just written to us, that the refusal to grant to 
him the exemption from military duty which the law stipulates in 
favor of students in Theology, will oblige him to quit our school. 

# Essai surla Manifestation des Convictions Religieuses— Paris, 1842. 



276 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

We will always respect authority, but we cannot refrain from re- 
marking that if, as all parties maintain, there has been a radical 
revolution in Geneva this year, that revolution has not, assuredly, 
tended to establish among us that equality and that religious liberty, 
without which all other liberty is but a useless and dangerous 
plaything. However, it is in France above all that this movement 
is taking place. A French student writes to us, with regrets which 
have touched us, that he has united himself again to the Estab- 
lished Church. When young men, after having pursued in our 
Preparatory School those first studies which present so many 
difficulties, desire to secure to themselves, by certain measures, 
a future more easy ; or even to abandon our Institution for the 
purpose of placing themselves in one sustained by government, 
from which Unitarian and Rationalist doctrines have been banish- 
ed, we shall be happy to think that we have been able to prepare 
them in part, with the aid of God our Saviour, for the work of 
the ministry, and we shall follow them in their career with the 
same affection, and we hope, with the same prayers. But we 
ourselves, Gentlemen, will make no advances to the political gov- 
ernments ; we believe that our sole resource is with the Govern- 
ment from above, and knowing the faithfulness of Christ towards 
those who seek only His glory, assured that there is a place for 
whomsoever He calls to preach His Gospel, we will ask of Him the 
confidence that we, teachers and pupils, ought to have in His love, 
and to make us all continue to walk by faith and not by sight. 
i The [circumstances even of the Church in our country might 
also occupy our attention. Alas ! we have played this year the 
part of Cassandra. In vain have we presented, as well as we 
could, the correct principles of Ecclesiastical Government ; in 
vain, in particular, have we shown that the elders of the Church 
ought to be chosen by the people of the parishes assembled in 
their places of worship, with their pastors, after having invoked 
the name of God, and not by municipal councils, over which ma- 
gistrates preside ; our words for a moment heard, have in the end 
been in vain. We have seen among us, a very strange spectacle ; 
we have seen ecclesiastics, men in other respects truly enlighten- 
ed, and possessing undoubted talent, appear to fear their parishes, 
and employ their powerful influence to cause the rulers of the 
Church to be elected, not by the Church, but by the magistrates 
charged to watch over the~ maintenance of the roads and public 
edifices. And now that this election has been made, what do peo- 
ple say ? surprising thing ! Exclamations of astonishment and 
grief are heard, that 1he political bodies to which some have 
wished at all price to entrust the ecclesiastical elections, have 
made those elections political ; the fall of the Church is predicted, 
men are now occupied with those who are destined infallibly to 
share the spoils,* and nothing can equal the zeal which has been 
employed to obtain this change, unless it be the grief which has 
been manifested when, as we predicted, its inevitable results have 
been discovered. Behold, Gentlemen, whither ignorance of the 

* See the Courier of Geneva of the 24th Sept., 1842. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 277 

first principles of ecclesiastical government, on the part of those 
who administer the Church, whatever may be, in other respects, 
their illumination, their morality, their patriotism, inevitably con- 
ducts. 

If we look beyond this School, beyond this city, into the reli- 
gious world in general, there are, Gentlemen, other subjects which 
present themselves. It is thus that we see pious men, seduced, 
without doubt, by many truths mixed up with strange errors, re- 
ceive a system come from a city in England,* according to which 
there is no more Church, although Jesus has promised (Matt, xvi.) 
that " the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ;" and that 
there ought to be no more pastors and teachers, although revela- 
tion declares to us that Christ himself has established " pastors and 
teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the minis- 
try, for the edifying of the body of Christ." (Ephes. iv. 11, 12.) 

But, Gentlemen, there is another error ,• it is that which is found 
in the other extremity of the theological line, that I intend now to 
indicate to you. In the bosom of a University in England, that of 
Oxford, has grown up an ecclesiastical system which interests 
and justly grieves all Christendom. It is now some time since 
some laymen, whom I love and respect, came to me to ask me to 
write against that dangerous error. I answered that I had neither 
the time nor the capacity, nor the documents necessary for the 
task. But if I am incapable of composing a dissertation, I can at 
least show in few words how I regard it. It is with me even a 
duty, since respectable Christians ask it of me ; and it is that 
which has determined me to choose this subject for , the present 
occasion. 

Let us comprehend well, Gentlemen, the position which Evan- 
gelical Christian Theology occupies. 

At the epoch of the Reformation, if I may so speak, three dis- 
tinct eras had occurred in the history of the Church. 

1. That of t Evangelical Christianity, which, having its focus in 
the times of the Apostles, extended its rays throughout the first 
and second centuries of the Church. 

2. That of Ecclesiastical Catholicism, which, commencing its 
existence in the third century, reigned till the seventh. 

3. That of the Papacy, which reigned from the seventh to the 
fifteenth century. 

Such were the three grand eras in the then past history of the 
Church ; let us see what characterized each one of them. 

In the first period, the supreme authority was attributed to the 
revealed Word of God. 

In the second, it was, according to some, ascribed to the Church 
as represented by its bishops. 

In the third, to the Pope. 

We acknowledge cheerfully that the second of these systems is 
much superior to the third ; but it is inferior to the first ! 

* Plymouth. (Dr. Merle here refers to those who are called " Plymouth 
Brethren.") 



278 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

£ III fact, in the first of these systems it is God who rules. 

In the second, it is Man. 

In the third, it is, to speak after the Apostle, " that working 
of Satan, with all power, and signs and lying wonders" (2 
Thess. ii. 9). 

The Reformation, in abandoning the Papacy, might have re- 
turned to the second of these systems, that is, to Ecclesiastical 
Catholicism ; or to the first, that is, to Evangelical Christianity. 

In returning to the second, it would have made half the way. 
Ecclesiastical Catholicism is, in effect, a middle system — a via 
media, as one of the Oxford Doctors has termed it, in a sermon 
which he has just published. On. the one hand, it approaches 
much to Papacy, for it contains, in the germ, all the principles 
which are there found, On the other, however, it diverges from 
it, for it rejects the Papacy itself. 

The Reformation was not a system of pretended juste milieu. 
It went the whole way ; and rebounding with that force which 
God gives, it fell, as at one single leap, into the Evangelical 
Christianity of the Apostles. 

fe But there is now, Gentlemen, a numerous and powerful party 
in England, supported even by some Bishops (whose Charges 
have rilled us with astonishment and grief), which would, ac- 
cording to its adversaries, quit the ground of Evangelical Chris- 
tianity to plant itself upon that of Ecclesiastical Catholicism, 
with a marked tendency towards the Papacy; or which, accord- 
ing to what it pretends, would faithfully maintain itself on that 
hierarchical and semi-Romish ground, which is, according to it, 
the true, native and legitimate foundation of the Church of Eng- 
land. It is this movement which is, from the name of one of its 
principal chiefs, called Puseyism. 

" The task of the true children of the Catholic Church," says 
the British Critic (one of the Journals which are the organs of the 
Oxford party), "is to unprotestantize the Church." "It is neces- 
sary," says one of these doctors,* " to reject entirely and to ana- 
thematize the principle of Protestantism, as being that of a here- 
sy, with all its form, its sects and its denominations." " It is 
necessary," says another in his posthumous writings,! " to hate 
more and more the Reformation and the Reformers." 

In separating the Church from the Reformation, this party pre- 
tends to wish not to bring back the Papacy, but to retain the 
church in the juste milieu of Ecclesiastical Catholicism. How- 
ever, the fact is not to be disguised, that if it were forced to 
choose between what it considers two evils, it would greatly 
prefer Rome to the Reformation. 

Men highly respectable for their knowledge, their talents, and 
their moral character, are found among these theologians. And, 
let us acknowledge it, the fundamental want which seems to 
have decided this movement is a legitimate one. 

There has been felt in England, in the midst of all the waves 

* Mr. Palmer. t Mr. Froude. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 279 

which now heave and agitate the Church, a want of antiquity ; 
and men have sought a rock, firm and immovable, on which to 
plant their footsteps. 

This want is founded in human nature ; it is also justified by 
the social and religious state of the present time. I myself thirst 
for antiquity. 

But the doctors of Oxford, do they satisfy, for themselves and 
others, these wants of the age ? 

I am convinced of the contrary. What a juvenile antiquity is 
that before which these eminent men prostrate themselves ! It is 
the young and inexperienced Christianity of the first ages which 
they call ancient ; it is to the child that they ascribe the authority 
of the old man. If it be a question respecting the antiquity of 
humanity, certainly we are more ancient than the Fathers, for we 
are fifteen or eighteen centuries older than they ; it is we who have 
the light of experience and the maturity of grey hairs. 

But no ; it is not respecting such an antiquity that there can be 
any question in divine things. The only antiquity to which we 
hold is that of the " Ancient of days" (Dan. vii. 13), " of Him who 
before the mountains were brought forth, or ever He had formed 
the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting is 
God." It is " He who is our refuge from age to age" (Ps. xc. 1, 2). 
The truly ancient document to which we appeal is that " Word 
which is settled for ever in heaven" (Ps. cxix, 89), and " which 
shall stand for ever" (Isaiah, x. 8). Behold, Gentlemen, our 
antiquity. 

Alas, that which most afflicts us in the learned doctors of Ox- 
ford, is that whilst the people who surround them hunger and 
thirst after antiquity, they themselves, instead of leading them to 
the ancient testimony of the " Ancient of days," only conduct them 
to puerile novelties. What novelties in reality, and what faded 
novelties ! — that purgatory, those human pardons, those images, those 
relics, that invocation of the saints which these doctors would restore 
to the Church.* What immense and monstrous innovation that 
Rome to which they would have us return ! 

Who are the innovators, 1 demand ? those who say as we do, 
with the eternal Word : " God hath begotten us of His own will, 
with the word of truth" (Jas. i. 18), or those who say as do the 
" Tracts for the Times :" " Rome is our mother, it is by her that 
we have been born to Christ." Those who say as we do, with 
the eternal Word : " Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of 
you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God" 
(Heb. iii. 12); or those who say as do these doctors: "In losing 
visible union with the Church of Rome, we have lost great privi- 
leges,"f certainly the doctors of Oxford are the innovators. 

The partisans of Rome, that grand innovation in Christendom, 
do not here deceive themselves ; they hail in these new doctors 
advocates of Romish novelties. The famous Romish Doctor Wise- 
man writes to Lord Shrewsbury : 

* Tracts for the Times, No. 90, Art. 6. 
t British Critic. 



280 PUSEYISM EXAMINED 

",We can count certainly on a prompt, zealous, and able co-ope- 
ration to bring the Church of England to obedience to the See of 
Rome. When I read in their chronological order the writings of 
the theologians of Oxford, I see in the clearest manner these doc- 
tors approximating from day to day our holy Church, both as to 
doctrine and good-will. Our Saints, our Popes, become more and 
more dear to them ; our rites, our ceremonies, and even the fes- 
tivals of our saints, and our days of fasting, are precious in their 
eyes, more precious, alas, than in the eyes of many of our own 
people." 

And the doctors of Oxford, notwithstanding their protestations, 
do they not concur in this view of the matter, when they say : 
" the tendency to Romanism is at bottom only a fruit of the pro- 
found desire which the Church, greatly moved, experiences to 
become again that which the Saviour left her, — One."* 

Such, Gentlemen, is the movement which is taking place in that 
Church of England, which so many pious men, so many Christian 
works have rendered illustrious. Dr. Pusey has had reason to say 
in his letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury : "upon the issue of 
the present struggle depend the destinies of our Church." And it 
is worth while for us to pause here for a few moments to exam- 
ine what party we ought to prefer, as members of the ancient 
Church of the continent, and what we have to do in this grave and 
solemn crisis. 

Gentlemen, we ought to profess frankly that we will have nei- 
ther the Papacy nor the via media of Ecclesiastical Catholicism, but 
remain firm upon the foundation of Evangelical Christianity. In 
what consists this Christianity when it is opposed to the two 
other systems which we reject ? 

There are in it things essential and things unessential ; it is of 
that only which forms its essence ; of that which is its principle, 
that I would here speak. 

There are three principles which form its essence ; the first is 
that which we may call its formal principle, because it is the 
means by which this system is formed or constituted ; the second 
is that which may be called the material principle, because it is 
the very doctrine which constitutes the religious system ; the third 
I call the personal or moral principle, because it concerns the appli- 
cation of Christianity to the soul of each individual. 

The formal principle of Christianity is expressed in few words : 

The word of god, only. 

That is to say, the Christian receives the knowledge of the truth 
only by the Word of God, and admits of no other source of reli- 
gious knowledge. 

The material principle of Christianity is expressed with equal 
brevity : 

THE GRACE OF CHRIST, ONLY. 

That is to say, the Christian receives salvation^ only by the 
* Letter of Dr. Pusey to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 281 

grace of Christ, and recognizes no other meritorious cause of eter- 
nal life. 

The personal principle of Christianity may be expressed in the 
most simple terms : 

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, ONLY. 

That is to say, there must be in each soul that is saved a moral 
and individual work of regeneration, wrought by the Spirit of 
God, and not by the simple concurrence of the Church,* and the 
magic influence of certain ceremonies. 

Gentlemen, recall constantly to your minds these three simple 
truths : 

The Word of God, only ; 
The Grace of Christ, only ; 
The Work of the Spirit, only; 

and they will truly be " a lamp to your feet and a light to your 
paths." 

These are the three great beacons which the Holy Spirit has 
erected in the Church. Their effulgence should spread from one 
end of the world to the other. So long as they shine, the Church 
walks in the light ; as soon as they shall become extinct or even 
obscured, darkness like that of Egypt will settle upon Christen- 
dom. 

But, gentlemen, it is precisely these three fundamental princi- 
ples of Evangelical Christianity which are attacked and over- 
thrown- by the new system of Ecclesiastical Catholicism. It is 
not to some minor point, to some doctrine of secondary impor- 
tance that they direct their attention at Oxford ; it is to that which 
constitutes the essence even of Christianity and of the Reforma- 
tion, to those truths so important that, as Luther said, " with them 
the Church stands, and without them the Church falls." Let us 
consider them. 

I. 

The formal principle of Evangelical Christianity is this : 

THE WORD OF GOD, ONLY. 

He who would know and possess the Truth, in order to be 
saved, ought to address himself to that revelation of God which is 
contained in the sacred Scriptures, and to reject everything which 
is human addition, everything which, like the work of man, is 
justly suspected of being stamped with the impress of a deplora- 
ble mixture of error. There is one sole source at which ^the 
Christian quenches his thirst ; it is that stream, clear, limpid, per- 
fectly pure, which flows from the throne of God. He turns his 
lips away from every other fountain which flows parallel with it, 

* The words which are used in the French are adjunction de VEglise, and 
are employed to express that additional or concurrent influence which the 
Church is believed, by the Puseyites, to exert in regeneration by her min- 
istrations. — Note by the Tr. m 



282 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

or which would pretend to mix itself with it ; for he knows that 
because of the source whence these streams issue, they all con- 
tain troubled, unwholesome, perhaps deadly waters. 

The sole, ancient, eternal stream, is God ; the new, ephemeral, 
failing stream, is man ; and we will quench our thirst but in God 
alone. God is for us, so full of a sovereign majesty, that we 
would regard as an outrage, and even as impiety, the attempt to 
put anything by the side of His Word. 

But this is what the authors of the novelties of Oxford are 
doing. " The Scriptures," say they, in the Tracts for the Times, 
" it is evident are not, according to the principles of the Church 
of England, the Rule of Faith. The doctrine or message of the 
Gospel is but indirectly presented in the Scriptures, and in an 
obsure and concealed manner."* " Catholic tradition," says one 
of the two principal chiefs of this school, f " is a divine informer 
in religious things ; it is the unwritten word. These two things 
(the Bible and the Catholic traditions) form together a united 
rule of Faith. Catholic tradition is a divine source of knowledge 
in all things relating to Faith. The Scriptures are only the docu- 
ment of ultimate appeal ; Catholic tradition is the authoritative 
teacher." 

" Tradition is infallible," says another doctor ;t " the unwritten 
word of God, of necessity, demands of us the same respect which 
his written word does, and precisely for the same reason — because 
it is His word." " We demand that the whole of the Catholic 
traditions should be taught," says a third. § 

Behold, gentlemen, one of the most pestiferous errors which 
can be disseminated in the Church." 

Whence has Rome and Oxford derived it ? Certainly the res- 
pect which we entertain for the incontestable science of these 
doctors shall not prevent us from saying it : This error can come 
from no other source than the natural aversion of the heart of 
fallen man for everything that the Scriptures teach. It can be 
nothing else than a depraved will which leads man to put the 
Sacred Scriptures aside. Men first abandon the fountain of living 
waters, and then hew for themselves, here and there, cisterns 
which will hold no water. Here is a truth which the history of 
every Church teaches in its successive falls and errors, as well 
as that of every soul in particular. The theologians of Oxford 
only follow in the way of all flesh. 

Behold, then, gentlemen, two established authorities by the side 
of each other — the Bible and Tradition. We do not hesitate as 
to what we have to do : 

To the Law and to the Testimony 1 We cry with the pro- 
phet : " If they speak not according to His word, it is because 
there is no light in them : and behold trouble and darkness, dim- 
ness of anguish ; and they shall be driven to darkness." (Isa. 
viii. 20, 22.) 

* Tract 85. t Newman, Lecture on Romanism. 

J Keble's Sermons. § Palmer's Aids to Reflection. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 283 

We reject this Tradition as being a species of Rationalism 
which introduces, for a rule in Christian doctrine, not the human 
reason of the present time, but the human reason of the times 
past. We declare, with the Churches of the Reformation in their 
symbolical writings (Confessions of Faith), that " the Sacred 
Scriptures are the only judge, the only rule of Faith ;" that it is 
to them, as to a touchstone, that all dogmas ought to be brought ; 
that it is by them that the question should be decided, whether 
they are pious or impious, true or false ?* 

Without doubt there was originally an oral tradition which was 
pure ; it was the instructions given by the Apostles themselves, 
before the sacred writings of the New Testament existed. How- 
ever, even then, the apostle and the evangelist, Peter and Barna- 
bas (Gal. ii. 13), could not walk uprightly, and consequently 
stumbled in their words. The divinely inspired Scriptures alone 
are infallible : the word of the Lord endureth for ever. 

But, however pure was oral instruction, from the time that the 
apostles quitted the earth, that tradition was necessarily exposed 
in this world of sin, to be little by little defaced, polluted, cor- 
rupted. It is for this cause that the Evangelical Church honors 
and adores, with gratitude and humility, that gracious good plea- 
sure of the Saviour, in virtue of which that pure, primitive type, 
that first, Apostolic tradition, in all its purity, has been rendered 
permanent, by being written, by the Spirit of God himself, in our 
sacred books, for all coming time. And now she finds in those 
writings, as we have just heard, the divine touchstone, which she 
employs for the purpose of trying all the traditions of men. 

Nor does she establish concurrently, as do the doctors of Ox- 
ford and the Council of Trent, the tradition which is written and 
the tradition which is oral; but she decidedly renders the latter 
subordinate to the former, because one cannot be sure that this 
oral tradition is only and truly Apostolical tradition, such as it 
was in its primitive purity. 

The knowledge of true Christianity, says the Protestant Church, 
flows only from one source, namely, from the Holy Scriptures, or, 
if you will, from the Apostolic tradition, such as we find it con- 
tained in the writings of the New Testament. 

The Apostles of Jesus Christ — Peter, Paul, John, Matthew, 
James — perform their functions in the Church to-day ; no one has 
need, no one has the power to take their place. They perform 
their functions at Jerusalem, at Geneva, at Corinth, at Berlin, at 
Paris ; they bear testimony in Oxford and in Rome itself. They 
preach, even to the ends of the world, the remission of sins and 
conversion of the soul in the name of the Saviour; they an- 
nounce the resurrection of the Crucified to every creature ; they 
loose and they retain sins ; they lay the foundation of the house 
of God and they build it ; they teach the missionaries and the 
ministers of the Gospel; they regulate the order of the Church, 
and preside in Synods which would be Christian. They do all 

* Formula of Agreement. 



284 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

this by the written Word which they have left us. Or rather, 
Christ, Christ himself, does it by that Word, since it is the Word 
of Christ, rather than the word of Paul, of Peter, or of James. 
tc Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations ; lo ! I am with you 
alway, even to the end of the world." (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20.) 

Without doubt, as to the number of their words, the Apostles 
spoke more than they wrote ; but as to the substance, they said 
nothing more than what they have left us in their divine books. 
And if they had taught by the mouth, as to the substance, differ- 
ently or more explicitly than they did by their writings, no one 
could at this day be in a state to report to us with assurance, even 
one syllable of these instructions. If God did not wish to preserve 
them in His Bible, no one can come to His aid, and do what God 
himself has not wished to do, and what He has not done. If, in 
the writings more or less doubtful, of the companions of the Apos- 
tles, or of those Fathers who are called Apostolical, one should 
find any doctrines of the Apostles, it would be necessary first of all, 
to put it to the trial in comparing it with the certain instructions 
of the Apostles, that is with the Canon of the Scriptures. 

So much for the tradition of the Apostles. Let us pass from the 
times when they lived to those which succeeded. Let us come to 
the tradition of the doctors of the first centuries. That tradition is, 
without doubt, of great value to us ; but by the very fact of its 
being presbyterian, episcopal, or synodical, it is no more Apostol- 
ical. And let us suppose (what is not true) that it does not con- 
tradict itself; and let us suppose, that one Father does not over- 
throw what another Father has established (as is often the case, 
and Abelard has proved it in his famous work entitled Sic et Non, 
whose recent publication we owe to the care of a French philoso- 
pher) ;* — let *us suppose for a moment, that one might reduce this 
tradition of the Fathers of the Church to a harmony similar to that 
which the Apostolical tradition presents, the canon which might 
be obtained thus could in no manner be placed on an equality with 
the canon of the Apostles. f 

Without doubt, — and we acknowledge it,— the declarations [of 
Christian doctors merit our attention, if it is the Holy Spirit which 
speaks in them, that Spirit ever living and ever acting in the Church. 
But we will not, we absolutely will not allow ourselves to be 
bound by that which, in this tradition and in these doctors, is only 
the work of man. And how shall we distinguish that which is of 
God from that which is of men, but by the Holy Scriptures ? " It 
remains," says St. Augustine, " that I judge myself according to this 
only Master, from whose judgment I desire not to escape,":]: The 
declarations of the doctors in the Church are only the testimonies 
of the faith which these eminent men had in the doctrines of the 
Scriptures. They see how these doctors received these doctrines ; 

* Ouvrages inedites d'Abdard, published by Mr. Victor Cousin. Paris, 1836. 
The Introduction of this work upon the history of Scholastic Philosophy 
in France, is a chef-d'&uvre. 

t Nitzsch, Protestantische Theses. 

| Retract, in Prol. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 285 

they may, without doubt, be instructive and edifying for us ; but 
there is no authority in them which binds us. All the doctors, 
Greek, Latin, French, Swiss, German, English, American, placed 
in the presence of the Word of God, are altogether, only disciples 
who are receiving instruction. Men of the first times, men of the 
last, we are all alike upon the benches of that divine school ; and 
in the chair of instruction, around which we are humbly assem- 
bled, nothing appears, nothing elevates itself, but the infallible 
Word of God. I perceive, in that vast auditory, Calvin, Luther, 
Cranmer, Augustine, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Cyprian, by the side 
of our contemporaries. We are not " disciples of Cyprian and Ig- 
natius," as the doctors of Oxford* call themselves ; but of Jesus 
Christ. " We do not despise the writings of the Fathers," we say 
with Calvin, " but in making use of them we remember always 
that * all things are ours' (1 Cor. iii. 22) ; that they ought to serve, 
not govern us ; and that c we are Christ's,' (1 Cor. iii. 23), whom in 
all things, and without exception, it behooves us to obey."f 

This the doctors of the first centuries are themselves the first to 
say. They claim for themselves no authority, and only wish that 
the Word which has taught them may teach us also. " Now that 
I am old," says Augustine, in his Retractions, " I do not expect not 
to stumble in word, or to be perfect in word : how much less 
when, being young, I commenced writing ?"t " Beware," says 
he again, " of subjecting yourselves to my writings, as if they 
were Canonical Scriptures."§ " Do not esteem as Canonical 
Scriptures the works of Catholic and justly honored men," says he 
elsewhere. " It is allowed us, without impeaching that honor 
which is due to them, to reject those things in their writings, 
should we find such in them, which are contrary to the truth. I 
am, in regard to the writings of others, what I would have others 
be in regard to mine."|| " All that has been said since the times 
of the Apostles ought to be retrenched," says Jerome, " and have 
no ' authority. However holy, however learned, a man maybe, 
who comes after the Apostles, let him have no authority. "1T 

" Neither antiquity nor custom," says the Confession ot the Re- 
formed Church of France, " ought to be arrayed in opposition to 
the Holy Scriptures ; on the contrary, all things ought to be exam- 
ined, regulated and reformed according to them." 

And the Confession of the English Church even says, the doc- 
tors of Oxford to the contrary notwithstanding: " The Holy Scrip- 
tures contain all that is necessary to salvation, so that all that is 
not found in them, all that cannot be proved by them, cannot be 
required of any one as an article of faith or as necessary to salva- 
tion." 

Thus the Evangelical doctors of our times give the hand to the 

* Newman on Romanism. f Calv. Inst. Relig. Christ. 

J Retractions. § In Prol. de Trinitate, 

|| Ad Fortunatianum. 1 In psalm, lxxxvi. 



286 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

Reformers, the Reformers to the Fathers, the Fathers to the Apos- 
tles ; and thus forming, as it were, a chain of gold, the whole 
Church of all ages and of all people, shouts forth as with one 
voice to the God of Truth, that hymn of one of our greatest 
poets :* 

Parle seul a mon cceur, et qu'aucune prudence, 
Qu'aucun autre Docteur ne m'explique tes lois ; 
Que toute creature en ta sainte presence, 
S'impose le silence, 
Et laisse agir ta voix !f 

What then is tradition ? It is the testimony of History. 

There is a historical testimony for the facts of a Christian histo- 
ry, as well as for those of any other history. We admit that tes- 
timony ; only we would 'discuss it, and examine it, as we would 
all other testimony. The heresy of Rome and of Oxford, — and it 
is that which distinguishes them from us, — consists in the fact that 
they attribute infallibility to this testimony as to Scripture itself. 

Although we receive the testimony of history in that which is 
true, as, for example, in that which relates to the collection of the 
writings of the Apostles ; it by no means results from this that we 
should receive this testimony in that which is false, as, for in- 
stance, in the adoration of Mary, or the celibacy of the priests. 

The Bible is the Faith, holy, authoritative, and truly ancient, of 
the child of God ; human tradition springs from the love of novel- 
ties, and is the faith of ignorance, of superstition, and of a credu- 
lous puerility. 

How deplorable but instructive, to see doctors of a Church call- 
ed to the glorious liberty of the children of God, and which reposes 
only on God and his Word, place themselves under the bondage ot 
human ordinances ! And how loudly does that example'cry to us : 
" Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, 
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. v. 1.) 

All those errors which we are combating come from truths 
which have not been rightly understood. We also believe in the 
attributes of the Church of which they speak so much ; but we 
believe in them according to the meaning which God attaches to 
it, and our opponents believe in them according to that which 
men attach to it. 

Yes, there is one holy Catholic Church, but it is, as the Apostle 
says, " The general assembly and Church of the first-born, whose 
names are written in heaven" (Heb. xii, 23). Unity as well as 
holiness appertains to the invisible Church. It behooves us, without 
doubt, to pray that the visible Church should advance daily in the 
possession of these heavenly attributes ; but neither rigorous unity 
nor universal holiness is a perfection essential to its existence, or 
a sine qua non. To say that the visible Church must absolutely be 
composed of saints only, is the error of the Donatists and fanatics 

* Corneille. 

t Speak thou alone to my heart, and let no other wisdom, no other Doc- 
tor explain to me Thy laws ; let every creature be silent in Thy holy pre- 
sence, and let Thy voice speak ! 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 287 

of all ages. So also, to say that the visible Church must of ne- 
cessity be externally one, is the corresponding error of Rome, of 
Oxford, and of formalists of all times. Let us guard against pre- 
ferring the exterior hierarchy, which consists in certain human 
forms, to that interior hierarchy which is the kingdom of God 
itself Let us not permit that the form, which passes away, should 
determine the essence of the Church ; but let us, on the contrary, 
make the essence of the Church, to wit, the Christian life — which 
emanates from the Word and Spirit of God — change and renew 
the form. The form has killed the substance, — here is the whole 
history of the Papacy and of false Catholicism. The substance 
vivifies the form, — here is the whole history of Evangelical Chris- 
tianity, and of the true Catholic Church of Jesus Christ. 

Yes, I admit it — The Church is the judge of controversies — judex 
contr over si arum. But what is the Church ? It is not the Clergy, it 
is not the Councils, still less is it the Pope. It is the Christian 
people, it is the faithful. £J Prove all things, hold fast that which 
is good" (1 Thess. v. 21), is said to the children of God, and not 
to some assembly, or to a certain bishop ; and it is they who are 
constituted, on the part of God, judges of controversies. If animals 
have the instinct which leads them not to eat that which is inju- 
rious to them, we cannot do less than allow to the Christian this 
instinct, or rather this intelligence, which emanates from the virtue 
of the Holy Spirit. Every Christian (the Word declares it) is 
called upon to reject " every spirit that confesses not that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh" (1 John iv. 1 — 5). And this is what 
is essentially meant, when it is said that the Church is the judge 
of controversies ! 

Yes, I believe and confess it, — there is an authority in the Church, 
and without authority the Church cannot stand. But where is it 
to be found? It is with him, whoever he may be, that has the 
external consecration, whether he possesses or not theological 
gifts, whether he has received or not grace and justification? Rome 
herself does not yet pretend that orders save and sanctify. Must 
then the children of God go, in many cases, to ask a decision in 
things relating to faith, of the children of this world ? What ! a 
bishop, from the moment he is seated in his chair, although he 
may be perhaps destitute of science, destitute of the Spirit of God, 
and although he may perhaps have the world and hell in his heart, 
as had Borgia and so many other bishops, shall he have authority 
in the assembly of the saints, and do his lips possess always the 
wisdom and the truth necessary for the Church ? . . . , No, Gentle- 
men, the idea of a knowledge of God, true, but at the same time 
destitute of holiness, is a gross supernaturalism. " Sanctify them 
through the Truth" says Jesus (John xvii., 17). There is an 
authority in the Church, but that authority is wholly in the Word 
of God. It is not a man, not a minister, not a bishop, descended 
from Gregory, from Chrysostom, from Augustine, or from Irenseus, 
who has authority over the soul. It is not with a power so con- 
temptible as that which comes from those men, that we, the minis- 
ters of God, go forth into the world. It is elsewhere than in that 



288 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

episcopal succession, that we seek that which gives authority to 
our ministry, and validity to our sacraments. 

Rejecting these deplorable innovations, we appeal from them to 
the ancient, sovereign and divine authority of the Word of the 
Lord. The question which we ask of him who would inform 
himself concerning eternal things is that which we receive from 
Jesus himself: " What is written in the Law, and how readest 
thou ?" (Luke x. 26.) That which we say to rebellious spirits is 
what Abraham said from heaven to the rich man; ''You have 
Moses and the prophets, hear them." (Luke xvi. 29.) 

That which we ask of all, is to imitate the Bereans who 
" searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so." 
(Acts xvii. 11.) 

" We ought to obey God rather than men," even the most ex- 
cellent of men. (Acts v. 29.) 

Behold, the true authority, the true hierarchy, the true polity. 
The churches which men make possess human authority — this is 
natural. But the Church of God possesses the authority of God, 
and she will not receive it from others. 

II. 

Such is the formal principle of Christianity ; let us come now 
to its material principle, that is to say, to that which is the body, 
the substance even, of religion. We have announced it in these 
terms : 

THE GRACE OF CHRIST, ONLY. 

" Ye are saved by grace, through faith," says the Scripture, 
" and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ; not of works, 
lest any man should boast." (Eph. ii. 8.) 

Evangelical Christianity not only seeks for complete salvation 
in Christ, but seeks it in Christ only, thus excluding, as a cause of 
salvation, all works of his own, all merit, all co-operation of man 
or of the Church. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, upon 
which we can build the hope of our salvation, but the free and 
unmerited grace of God, which is given to us in Christ, and com- 
municated by faith. 

Now, this second great foundation of Evangelical Christianity 
is equally overthrown by the modern Ecclesiastical Catholicism. 

The famous Tract, No. 90, which I hold in my hand at this 
moment, seeks to explain in a papistical sense the Confession of 
Faith of the Church of England. 

The 11th Article of this Confession says : " That we are justified 
by Faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine." 

Behold the commentary of the new School of Oxford : " In ad- 
hering to the doctrine that faith alone justifies, we do not at all 
exclude the doctrine that works also justify. If it were said that 
works justify in the same sense in which it is'said that faith alone 
justifies, there would be a contradiction in terms. But faith alone 
in one sense justifies us, and in another, good works justify us : 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 289 

this is all that is here maintained ! . . . . Christ alone, in one sense, 
justifies, faith also justifies in its proper sense; and so works, 
whether moral or ceremonial, may justify us in their respective 
sense." 

" There are," says the British Critic, " some Catholic truths 
which are imprinted on the surface of the Scripture rather than 
enveloped in its profound meaning ; such is the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by works." " The preaching of justification by Faith," 
says another doctor of this School, " ought to be addressed to 
Pagans by the propagators of Christian knowledge ; its promoters 
ought to preach to baptized persons justification by works."— 
Works, yes : but justification by them, never ! 

Justification is not, according to these doctors, that judicial act 
by which God, for the sake of the expiatory death of Christ, de- 
clares that He treats us as righteous ; it is confounded by them, 
as well as by Rome, with the work of the Holy Spirit. 

" Justification," says again the chief of these doctors, " is a 
progressive work ; it must be the work of the Holy Spirit and not 
of Christ. The distinction between deliverance from the guilt of 
sin and deliverance from sin itself, is not scriptural."* The British 
Critic calls the system of Justification by grace through faith 
"radically and fundamentally monstrous, immoral, heretical and 
anti-Christian." " The custom which has prevailed," say again 
these doctors, " of advancing, on all occasions, the doctrine of 
Justification explicitly and mainly, is evidently and entirely 
opposed to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures."! And they con- 
demn those who make " Justification to consist in the act by 
which the soul rests upon the merits of Christ only ."J 

I know that the doctors of Oxford pretend to have found here a 
middle term between the Evangelical doctrine and the Romish 
doctrine. " It is not," say they, " Sanctification which justifies us, 
but the presence of God in us, from which this Sanctification 
flows. Our Justification is the possession of this presence." But 
the doctrine of Oxford is at bottom the same with that of Rome. 
The Bible speaks to us of two great works of Christ : christ for 
us, and christ in us. Which of these two works is that which 
justifies us ? The Church of Christ answers : The first. Rome and 
Oxford answer : The second. When this is said, all is said. 

And these doctors do not conceal it. They inform us that it is 
the system against which they stand up. They declare to us that 
it is against the idea, that, when the sinner " has by faith laid hold 
of the saving merits of Christ, his sins are blotted out, covered, 
and cannot re-appear ; his guilt has been abolished, so that he 
has only to render thanks to Christ, who has delivered him from 
his transgressions." — " My Lord," says Dr. Pusey to the Bishop of 

Oxford, " it is against this system that I have spoken" Stop ! 

Do not tear to pieces this Good News, which alone has been, and 
will be in all ages, the consolation of the sinner ! 

Gentlemen, if the first principle of this new School had for effect 

* Newman on Justification, t Tract, 80. 
X Newman on Justification. 
14 



290 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

to deprive the Church of all light, this second principle would 
have for its end to deprive her of all salvation. "If righteous- 
ness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. foolish Gala- 
tians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth : 
receive ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of 
faith ! " (Gal. ii. 21, hi. 2, 3.) . . 

Men the most eminent for piety, have felt that it is the source 
even of the Christian life, the foundation of the Church which is 
here attacked: "there is reason," says the excellent Bishop of 
Winchester, who, as well as several other Bishops, and particu- 
lar^ those of Chester and Calcutta, has denounced these errors, m 
a Charge addressed to his clergy, " there is reason to fear that the 
distinctive principles of our Church would be endangered, if men 
should envelope in a cloud the great doctrine which sets forth the 
way in which we are accounted righteous before God ; if men 
doubt that the Protestant doctrine of Justification by faith is funda- 
mental ; if, instead of the sacrifice of Christ, the pure and only 
cause for which we are graciously received, men establish a cer- 
tain inherent disposition of sanctification, and thus coniouna the 
work of the Spirit within with the work of Christ without." 

The School of Oxford pretends, with Rome and the Council of 
Trent, "that justification is the indwelling m us, of God the father 
and of the incarnate Word, by the Holy Spirit, and that the two 
acts distinguished from each other by the Bible and our theolo- 
gians form only one."*— What then ? 

God, 1 remits to the sinner the penalty of sin ; he absolves him; 
he pardons him; 2. he delivers him from sm itself; he renews 
him ; he sanctifies him. 

Are there not here two things ? . 

The pardon of sin on the part of God, would it not be just 
nothing at all ? Would it not be simply but an image of sanctifi- 
cation ? Or should one say that the pardon which is granted to 
faith, and which produces in the heart the sentiment of reconcilia- 
tion, of adoption, and of peace, is something too external to be 

taken into the account ? ^ . . 7 ^ • , • • i 

"The Lutheran system," says the British Critic, "is immoral, 
because it distinguishes these two works." Without doubt, it does 
distinguish them, but it does not separate them " See wherefore 
we are justified," says Melancthon, in the Apology for the Con- 
fession of Augsburg ;" it is in order that being righteous we should 
do good, and begin to obey the law of God ; see here why it is 
that we are regenerated and receive the Holy Spirit ; it is that the 
new life may have new works, and new dispositions." How 
many times has not the Reformation declared that justifying faith 
is not an historical, dead, vain knowledge, but a living action, a 
willing and a receiving, a work of the Holy Spirit, the true wor- 
ship of God, obedience towards God in the most important of all 
moments Yes, it is a living, efficacious faith which justifies ; 
and these words efficacious faith— which are found m all our Con- 
fessions of Faith— are there for the purpose of declaring that faith 
# Letter of Dr. Pusey to the Bishop of Oxford. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 29l 

alone, without doubt, serves as a cause in the work of justification, 
that alone, without doubt, it justifies, but that precisely because 
of this it does not rest alone, that is to say, without its appropriate 
operations and its fruits. 

Behold, the grand difference between us and the Oxford School. 
We believe in sanctification through justification, and the Oxford 
School believes in justification through sanctification. With us, 
justification is the cause and sanctification is the effect. With 
these doctors, on the contrary, sanctification is the cause, and 
justification the effect. And here are not things indifferent, and 
vain distinctions ; it is the sic and the non, the yes and the no. 
Whilst our creed establishes in all their rights these two works, 
the creed of Oxford compromises and annihilates both. Justifica- 
tion exists no more, if it depend on man's sanctification, and not 
on the grace of God; for " the heavens," says the Scripture, " are 
not clean in his sight" (Job xv. 15), " and his eyes are too pure 
to behold iniquity" (Hab. i. 13) ; but on the other hand sanctifi- 
cation itself cannot be accomplished ; for how could you expect 
the effect to be produced when you begin by taking away the 
cause ? " Herein is love," says St. John, " not that we loved God, 
but that He loved us ; we love Him because he first loved us." 
(1 John iv. 10, 19.) If I might use a vulgar expression, I should 
say that Oxford puts the cart before the horse, in placing sanctifica- 
tion before justification. In this way neither the cart nor the 
horse will advance. In order that the work should go on, it is 
necessary that that which draws should be placed before that 
which is drawn. There is not a system more contrary to true 
sanctification than that ; and, to employ the language of the 
British Critic, there is not, consequently, a system more monstrous 
and immoral. What! your justification, shall it not depend upon 
the work which Christ accomplished on the cross, but upon that 
which is accomplished in your hearts ! It is not to Christ, to his 
grace, that you ought to look in order to be justified, but to your- 
selves, to the righteousness which is in you, to your spiritual 
gifts !.... 

From this result two great evils. 

Either you will deceive yourselves, in believing that there is a 
work in you sufficiently good to justify you before God ; and then 
you will be inflated with pride, that pride which the Scriptures 
say, " goeth before a fall." Or you will not deceive yourselves ; 
you will see, as the Saviour says, that you are poor, and wretch- 
ed, and blind, and naked ; and then you will fall into despair. 
The heights of pride and the depths of despair, these are 
the alternatives which the doctrine of Oxford and of Rome be- 
queathes us. 

The Christian doctrine, on the contrary, places man in perfect 
humility, for it is Another who justifies him ; and yet it gives 
him abundant peace, for his justification, — a fruit of the right- 
eousness of God" (2 Cor. v. 21) — is complete, assured, eternal. 



292 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

III. 

Finally, we indicate the personal or moral principle of Christianity. 
We have announced it in these words : — 

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT ONLY. 

Christianity is an individual work ; the grace of God converts 
soul after soul. Each soul is a world, in which a creation pecu- 
liar to itself must be accomplished. The Church is but the as- 
semblage of all the souls in whom this work is wrought, and 
who are now united because they have but " one Spirit, one 
Lord, one Father." 

And what is the nature of this work ? It is essentially moral. 
Christianity operates upon the will of man and changes it. Con- 
version comes from the action of the Spirit of God, and not from 
the magic action of certain ceremonies, which, rendering faith on 
the part of man vain and useless, would regenerate him by their 
own inherent virtue. " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision 
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but [to be] a new crea- 
ture" (Gal. vi. 15). "If through the Spirit ye do mortify the 
deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Rom. viii. 13). 

Now the doctors of Oxford, although there is a great difference 
among them on this point, as well as on some others — some 
going by no means as far as others — put immense obstacles in the 
way of this individual regeneration. 

Nothing inspires them with greater repugnance than Christian 
individualism. They proceed by synthesis, not by analysis. 
They do not set out with the principle laid down by the Saviour, 
" except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ;" 
but they set out with this opposite principle : " all those who 
have participated in the ordinances of the Church are born again." 
And whilst the Saviour in all his discourses excites the efforts of 
each individual, saying: " Seek, ask, knock, strive to enter in at 
the strait gate ; it is only the violent who take it by force ;" the 
Oxford doctors say, on the contrary : " The idea of obtaining reli- 
gious truth ourselves, and by our private inquiry, whether by read- 
ing, or by thinking, or by studying the Scriptures or other books, 
.... is nowhere commanded in the Scriptures. The great ques- 
tion which ought to be placed before every mind is this : What 
voice should be heard like that of the holy Catholic and Apostolic 
Church ?"* 

And this individual regeneration by the Holy Spirit, how shall it 
be accomplished, since the first task of Puseyism is to say to all, 
that it is already accomplished ; that all who have been baptized 
have thereby been rendered partakers of the divine nature ; and 
that to preach conversion again to them is contrary to the trutli ? 
" It is baptism and not faith," says one of these doctors, " that is 
the primary instrument of justification ;"t and we know that with 

* British ^Critic. t Newman on Justification- 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 293 

them justification and conversion are one and the same work. 
To prevent the wretched from escaping from the miserable state 
in which they are, would not be the best means to persuade a 
poor man that he possesses a large fortune, or an ignorant man 
that he has great science, or a sick man that he is in perfect 
health. The Evil One could not invent a stratagem more fit to 
prevent conversion, than this idea that all men who have been 
baptized by water are regenerated. 

Still more, these doctors extend to the holy Supper this same 
magic virtue. " It is now almost universally believed," say they, 
in speaking of their Church, " that God communicates grace only 
through faith, prayer, spiritual contemplation, communion with 
God ; whilst it is the Church and her sacraments which are the 
ordained, direct, visible means for conveying to the soul that 
which is invisible and supernatural. It is said, for example, 
that to administer the Supper to infants, to dying persons ap- 
parently deprived of their senses, however pious they may have 
been, is a superstition ; and yet these practices are sanctioned by 
antiquity. The essence of the sectarian doctrine is to consider 
faith, and not the sacraments, as the means of justification and other 
evangelical gifts."* 

What then, a child which does not possess reason and which 
does not know even how to speak, a sick man whom the approach 
of death has deprived of perception and intelligence, shall they 
receive grace purely by the external application of the sacraments ? 
The will, the affections of the heart, have they no need to be 
touched in order that man may be sanctified? What a degrada- 
tion of man and of the religion of Jesus Christ ! Is there a great 
difference between such ceremonies and the mummeries and 
charms of the debased Hindoos or of the African savages ! 

If the first error of Oxford deprives the Church of light, if the 
second deprives her of salvation, the third deprives her of all real 
sanctification. Without doubt, we believe the sacraments are 
means of grace ; but they are only so when faith accompanies 
their use. To put faith and the sacraments in opposition, as the 
Oxford doctors do, is to annihilate the efficacy of the sacraments 
themselves. 

The Church will rise up against such fatal errors. There is a 
work of renovation which must be wrought in man, a personal or 
individual work ; and it is God who performs it. "A new heart," 
saith the Lord, will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within 
you." (Ez. xxxvi. 26.) 

By what right would they thus put the Church in the place of 
God, and establish her clergy as the dispensers of divine life ? 

Then it would be of little-, consequence that a man had led a 
dissipated life, and that the heart remains attached to sin and the 
world; would not a participation in the sacraments of religion 
suffice to put him in possession of grace ? We are assured that 
already sad consequences are manifested in the life of many of the 
adherents of Oxford. 

* Tracts for the Times. Advertisement in Vol. ii. 



294 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

The system of Puseyism tends to lull the conscience to sleep, 
by the participation of external rites : the Evangelical system 
tends to awaken it without cessation. The work of the Spirit, 
which is one of the grand principles of Evangelical Christianity, 
does not consist only in regeneration ; it consists also in a sancti- 
fication, fundamental and universal. If, instead of permitting 
ourselves to be enfeebled by trusting to human ordinances, we 
have truly the Spirit of Christ within us, we shall not suffer the 
least contradiction to exist between the divine law on the one 
hand, and our dispositions and actions on the other. We shall 
not content ourselves with abstaining from the grosser manifesta- 
tions of sin, but we shall desire that the very germ of evil be 
eradicated from our hearts. We shall love the Truth, and we 
shall reject with horror that sad hypocrisy which sometimes de- 
files the sanctuary. We shall not have in the communication of 
our religious convictions that reserve which Puseyism prescribes : 
M that which shall have been told to us in the ear, we shall pro- 
claim on the housetops." (Matth. x. 27.) We shall not remain 
in a Church whose most sacred truths we trample under our feet, 
eating the bread which she gives us and lifting up the arm to 
strike her. From the moment that we shall have discovered 
that a doctrine is opposed to the word of God, neither dangers nor 
sacrifices shall prevent us from casting it far from us. The work 
of the Spirit will carry light into the most secret recesses of our 
hearts. " The King's daughter is all glorious within." (Ps. xlv. 
13.) The King whom we follow has said to us : " I am the light 
of the world : he that folio we th me shall not walk in darkness, 
but shall have the light of life." (John viii. 12.) 



I repeat again in closing, Gentlemen, the three great principles 
of Christianity are these : 

The Word of God, only. 
The Grace of God, only. 
The Work of the Spirit, only. 

I come now to ask yon to apply to yourselves henceforth more 
and more these principles, and let them reign supremely over 
your hearts and lives. 

And why, Gentlemen ? Because everything that places our 
souls in immediate communication with God is salutary ; and 
everything that interposes between God and our souls is injurious 
and ruinous. If a thick cloud should pass between you and the 
sun you would no longer feel its genial warmth, and might per- 
haps be seized with a chill. So if you place between yourselves 
and the Word of God the traditiort and authority of the Church, 
you will no longer have to do with the Word of God ; that is 
to say, with a divine, and consequently a powerful and perfect 
instrument ; but with the word of man ; that is to say, with a 
human, and consequently a weak and defective instrument, it 
will have lost that power which translates from darkness into 
light. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 295 

Or, if you place between the grace of God and yourselves the 
ordinances of the Church, the episcopal priesthood, the disposi- 
tions of the heart, works, grace will then be no more grace, as St. 
Paul says. The instrument of God will have been broken, and 
we shall no longer be able to say, that " charity proceeds from 
faith unfeigned" (1 Tim. i.); that "faith worketh by love," 
(Gal v.) ; " that our souls are purified in obeying the truth'' (1 
Cor. i.) ; " that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith" (Eph. hi). 

Man always seeks to return, in some way, to a human salva- 
tion; this is the source of the innovations of Rome and of Oxford. 
The substitution of the Church for Jesus Christ is that which es- 
sentially characterizes these opinions. It is no longer Christ who 
enlightens, Christ who saves, Christ who forgives, Christ who 
commands, Christ who judges ; it is the Church and always the 
Church, that is to say, an assembly of sinful men, as weak and 
prone to err as ourselves. " They have taken away the Lord, 
and we know not where they have laid him" (John xx. 2). 

The errors which we have indicated are, therefore, practical 
errors, destructive of true piety in the soul, a deprivation of God's 
influence, and an exaltation of the flesh, although in a form that 
" has the show of wisdom in will-worship and humility" (Col. ii. 
23). If they should ever obtain the ascendency in the Church, 
Christianity would cease to be a new, a holy, a spiritual, a heav- 
enly life. It would become an external affair of ordinances, rites 
and ceremonies. This has been clearly seen by the servant of 
God, whom we have already quoted : " Finally," says Sumner, 
Bishop of Winchester, " I cannot but fear the consequences that a 
system of teaching, which confines itself to the external and ritual 
parts of divine worship, while it loses sight of their internal signi- 
fication and the spiritual life, may have upon the character, the 
efficacy and the truth of our Church ; a system, which robs the 
Church of its brightest glory, and, forgetting the continual presence 
of the Lord, seems to depose him from his just pre-eminence ; a 
system, which tends to put the observance of days, months, times 
and seasons, in the place of a true and spiritual worship ; which 
substitutes a spirit of hesitation, fear and doubt, for the cordial 
obedience of filial love ; a slavish spirit for the liberty of the Gos- 
pel ; and which, indeed, calls upon us to work out our sanctifica- 
tion with fear and trembling ; but without any foretaste of the rest 
that remaineth for the people of God, without giving us joy in 
believing."* 

The universal Church of Christ rejoices to hear such words. 
She beholds, with gratitude towards her divine Head, the firmness 
with which some bishops, ministers, and laymen of England meet 
this growing evil. But is this enough ? Is it enough to retain, on 
the edge of a precipice, a Church and a people, hitherto so dear 
to the friends of the Gospel ? 

Oxford conducts to Rome ; Mr. Sibthorp and others have proved 
it. The march of Puseyism regularly inclining, from Tract to 

* Charge delivered by Ch. R. Sumner, D.D., Lord Bishop of Winchester, 
1841. 



296 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

Tract, towards the pure system of the Papacy, demonstrates 
clearly enough the end to which it tends. And even if it should 
not effect a total conversion to Popery— what signifies it, since it 
is nothing else than the Popish system (in its essential features) 
transferred to England ? It is not necessary that the Thames 
should go to Rome to bear the tribute of its waters : the Tiber flows 
in Oxford. 

England owes everything to the Reformation. What was she 
before the renovation of the Church ? Blindly submissive to the 
Tudors, her forms of government, both political and ecclesiastical, 
were superannuated, without life and spirit; so that in England, 
as in almost all Europe, we might say, with a Christian states- 
man, that, " despotism seemed the only preservative against dis- 
solution."* The Reformation developed, in an admirable manner, 
that Christian spirit, that love of liberty, that fear of God, that 
loyal affection for the sovereign, that patriotism, those generous 
sacrifices, that genius, that strength, that activity, which constitute 
the prosperity and glory of England. In the age of the Reformation, 
Catholic Spain, gorged with the blood of the children of God, fell, 
overthrown by the Almighty Arm, and reformed England ascended, 
in her stead, the throne of the seas, which has been justly termed 
the throne of the world. The winds which engulphed the Armada 
called up this new power from the depths. 

The country of Philip II., wounded to the heart because she had 
attacked the people of God, dropped from her hand the sceptre of 
the ocean ; and the country of Elizabeth, fortified by the Word of 
God, found it floating on the seas, seized it, and wielded it to 
bring into subjection to the King of Heaven the nations of the 
earth. It is the Gospel that has given to England our antipodes. f 
It is the God of the Gospel who has bestowed upon her all that 
she possesses. If in those distinguished islands the Gospel were 
to fall under the united attacks of Popery and Puseyism, we might 
write upon their hitherto triumphant banner : " Ichabod, the glory 
of the Lord has departed. " 

God has given the dominion of the seas to the nations who bear, 
everywhere, with them the Gospel of Jesus Ghrist. But if, in- 
stead of the Good News of Salvation, England carries to the hea- 
then a mere human and priestly religion, God will deprive her of 
her power. The evil is already great. In India the Puseyite mis- 
sionaries are satisfied with teaching the natives rites and cere- 
monies, without troubling themselves about the conversion of the 
heart ; thus treading closely in the steps of the Roman Catholic 
Church. They endeavor to counteract the efforts of evangelical 
missionaries, and disturb the weak minds of the natives, by telling 
them that all those who have not received Episcopal ordination 
are not ministers. 

If England prove unfaithful to the Gospel, God will humble her 

* Archives of the House of Orange-Nassau, published at the Hague, by 
Mr. Groen Van Prinsterer, Counsellor of State. 
t New Zealand. 



PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 297 

in those powerful islands where she has established her throne, 
and in those distant countries subjected to her sway. Do we not 
already hear a faint rumor, which justifies these gloomy presenti- 
ments ? The mother country sees her difficulties increase ; un- 
heard of disasters have spread fear and terror on the banks of the 
Indus. From the chariot of this people is heard a cracking noise, 
because impious hands have changed the pole-bolt. Should Eng- 
land forsake the faith of the Bible, the crown would fall from her 
head. Ah! We also, Christians of the continent and of the world, 
would mourn over her fall ! We love her for Christ's sake; for 
His sake we pray for her. But if the apostasy, now begun, should 
be accomplished, we shall have ^nothing left for her but cries, 
groans and tears. 

What are the Bishops doing? What is the Church doing? 
This is the general question. 

If the Church of England were'well administered, she would 
only admit to her pulpits teachers who submit to the Word of God, 
agreeably to the Thirty-nine Articles, and banish from them all 
those who violate her laws, and poison the minds of trie youth, 
trouble souls, and seek to overthrow the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

A few Episcopal mandates will not accomplish this. We un- 
doubtedly believe that no power can take from the Christian the 
right to u examine the Scriptures, and. to try the spirits whether 
they are of God." But we do not believe in the supreme power 
of the Clergy : We do not believe that the servants of a church 
may announce to it doctrines which tend to overthrow it. Did it 
not please the Apostles, the elders, and the whole church, to im- 
pose silence upon those at Antioch, who wished to substitute, as 
they do no^ at Oxford, human ordinances. for the grace of Christ ? 
(Acts xv. 22.) Since when, does a well constituted Church speak 
only through isolated voices ? Shall the Annual Convocations of 
the Church of England remain always a vain ceremony and ag 
empty form ? If their nature cannot be changed, shall not power- 
ful remedies be applied to counteract great evils ? Will ni; the 
Church be moved in England, as formerly at Jerusalem? Shall 
not the " elders and the whole Church" (Acts xv. 22? form a 
Council which shall, as tradition tells us they did at Nice, place 
the Word of God upon an elevated throne, in token of its supreme 
authority, and, condemning and cutting off all dangerous errors, 
render to Jesus Christ and his Word that sovereign authority, 
which usurping hands are on the point of wresting from Him ? 

But if the Church still holds her peace, if she allows her sacred 
foundations to be sapped in her Universities, then (we say it with 
profound grief) a voice like that of the t prophet will be heard ex- 
claiming : Woe to the Church ! woe to the people I woe to Eng- 
land ! 

Gentlemen, there are two ways of destroying Christianity; one 
is to deny it, the other to displace it. To put the Church above 
Christianity, the hierarchy above the Word of God ; to ask a man, 
not whether he has received the Holy Ghost, but whether he has 
received baptism from the hands of those who are termed succes- 



298 £USEYISM EXAMINED. 

sor§ of the Apostles, and their delegates, — all this may doubtless 
flatter the pride of the natural man, but is fundamentally opposed 
to the Bible, and aims a fatal blow at the religion of Jesus Christ. 
If God had intended that Christianity should, like the Mosaic sys* 
tern, be chiefly an ecclesiastical, sacerdotal and hierarchical sys* 
tern, he would have ordered it and established it in the New Tes- 
tament, as he did in the Old. But there is nothing like this in the 
New Testament. All the declarations of our Lord and his Apos- 
tles tend to prove, that the new religion given to the world is 
" life and Spirit," and not a new system of priesthood [and ordi- 
nances. " The kingdom of God," saith Jesus, " cometh not with 
observation : neither shall they say, lo here ! or lo there ! for be- 
hold the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke xvii. 20, 21), 
" The kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; but righteousness 
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17). 

Let us then attribute a divine institution and a divine authority 
to the essence of the Church ; but by no means to its form. God 
has undoubtedly established the ministry of the Word and sacra- 
ments, that is to say, general forms, which are adapted to the 
universal Church ; but it is a narrow and dangerous bigotry, which 
would attribute more importance to the particular forms of each 
sect, than to the spirit of Christianity. This evil has long pre- 
vailed in the Eastern Church [Greek], and has rendered it barren. 
It is the essence of the Church of Rome, and it is destroying it. 
It is endeavoring to insinuate itself into every Church ; it appears 
in England in the Established Church ; in Germany in the Lutheran, 
and even in the Reformed and Presbyterian Church. It is that 
mystery of iniquity, which already began to work in the time of 
the Apostles. (2 Thess, ii. 7.) Let us reject and oppose this deadly 
principle wherever it is found. We are men before we are Swiss, 
French, English, or German ; let us also remember that we are 
Christians before we are Episcopalians, Lutherans, Reformed, or 
Dissenters. These different forms of the Church are like the dif- 
ferent costumes, different features, and fdifferent characters of 
nations ; that which constitutes the man is not found in these 
accessories. We must seek for it in the heart which beats under 
this exterior, in the conscience which is seated 'here, in the intel- 
ligence which there shines, in the will which there acts. If we 
assign more importance to the Church than to Christianity, to the 
form than to the life, we shall infallibly reap that which we have 
sown; we shall soon have a Church composed of skeletons, 
clothed it may be in brilliant garments, and ranged, I admit, in a 
most imposing order to the eye ; but as cold, stiff, and immovea- 
ble as a pale legion of the dead. If Puseyism (and, unfortunately, 
some of the doctrines which it promulgates are not, in England, 
confined to that school), if Puseyism should make progress in the 
Established Church, it will, in a few years, dry up all its springs 
of life. The feverish excitement which disease at first produces, 
will soon give way to languor, the blood will be congealed, the 
muscles stiffened, and that Church will be only a dead body, 
around which the eagles will gather together. 



J^lrSEYISM EXAMINED. 299 

Ail forms, whether papal, patriarchal, episcopal, consistorial, or 
presbyterian, possess only a human value and authority. Let us 
not esteem the bark above the sap, the body above the soul, the 
form above the life, the visible Church above the invisible, the 
priest above the Holy Spirit. Let us hate all sectarian, ecclesias- 
tical, national or dissenting spirit ; but let us love Jesus Christ in 
all sects, whether ecclesiastical, national or dissenting. The true 
catholicity which we have lost, and which we must seek to reco- 
ver, is that of " holding the Truth, in love." A renovation of the 
€hurch is necessary ; I know it, I feel it, I pray for it from the 
bottom of my soul. Only let us seek for it in the right way. 
Forms, ecclesiastical constitutions, the organization of Churches, 
are important, — very important. " But let us seek first the king- 
dom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be 
added unto us." (Matt. vi. 33.) 

Let us then, Gentlemen, be firm and decided in the Truth ; and 
while we love the erring, let us boldly attack the error. Let us stand 
upon the rock of ages, — the Word of God ; and let the vain opi- 
nions, and stale innovations, which are constantly springing up 
and dying in the world, break powerless at our feet. " Two 
systems of doctrine," says Dr. Pusey, " have now, and, probably, 
for the last time, met in conflict; the system of Geneva and the 
Catholic system." We accept this definition. One of the men 
who have most powerfully resisted these errors, the Rev. W. 
Goode, seems to think that by the Genevan system, Dr. Pusey in- 
tends to d-esignate the Unitarian, Pelagian, latitu dinar ian system, 
which has laid waste the Church, not only in Geneva, but throagh- 
out Christendom. " According to Romish tactics," says Mr. Goode, 
" the adversaries of the Oxford School are classed together under 
the name that will render them most odious ; they belong, it is 
said, to the Genevan ScJwoL* 

Certainly, Gentlemen, if the Unitarian School of England fand 
'Geneva were called upon to struggle with the semi-Papal School 
of Oxford, we should much fear the issue. But these divines 
will meet with other opponents in England, Scotland and Ireland, 
on the continent, and if need be, even in our little and humble 
Geneva. 

Yes, we agree to it ; it is the system of Geneva, which is now 
struggling with the Catholic system ; but it is the system of the 
ancient Geneva; it is the. system of Calvin and Beza, the system 
of the Gospel and the Reformation. The opprobrium they would 
cast upon us we receive as an honor ; three centuries ago Geneva 
rose against Rome ; let Geneva now rise against Oxford. 

" I should like," K says one of the Oxford doctors,! " to see the 

* The Case as it is. 

t W. Palmer's Aids to Reflection, 1841. This work contains some 
curious, and, without doubt, authentic conversations, which Mr. Palmer 
had at Geneva, in 1836, with different pastors and professors of the Aca- 
demy and the Company. "July 26. The public professor of Dogmatic 
Theology told me, when I asked him what was the precise doctrine of the 



300 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 

Patriarch of Constantinople and our Archbishop of Canterbury go 
barefoot to Rome, throw their arms round the Pope, kiss him, 
and not let him go, till they had persuaded him to be more rea- 
sonable ;" that is to say, doubtless, until he had extended his 
hand to them, and ceased to proclaim them heretics and 
schismatics. 

Evangelical Christians of Geneva, England, and all other coun- 
tries ! It is not to Rome that you must drag yourselves, " to 
those seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth, having a 
golden cup in her hand, full of abominations" (Rev. xvii.) ; the 
pilgrimage that you must make is to that excellent and perfect 
tabernacle, " not made with hands" (Heb. ix.) ; that "throne of 
grace, where weiind grace to help in time of need." (Heb. iv.) 

It is not upon the neck of the et Man of Sin/' that you must cast 
yourselves, covering him with your kisses and your tears ; but 
upon the neck of Him with whom " Jacob wrestled, until the 
breaking of the day" (Gen. xxxii.) ; of Him "who is seated at 
the right hand of God in the heavenly places, far above all prin- 
cipality, and power, and every name that is named, not only in 
this world ; but also in that which is to come." (Eph. v.) 

Yes, let the children of God in the East and in the West arise* 
let them, understanding the signs of the times, and seeing that the 
destinies of the Church depend upon the issue of the present con- 
flicts, conflicts so numerous, so different, and so powerful, for a 
sacred brotherhood, and with one heart, and one soul, exclaim, 
as Moses did when the ark set forward, " Rise up, Lord, and let 
thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee flee be- 
fore Thee." (Num. x. 35.) 

Company of Pastors at that time, on the subject of the Trinity, " Perhaps 
no two had exactly the same shade of opinion, that the great majority 
would deny the doctrine in the scholastic sense." — August 4. A pastor of 
the Company told me, "that of thirty-four members, he thinks there 
are only four who would admit the doctrine of the Trinity." The author 
was almost as much dissatisfied with the Evangelical as with the Unitari- 
an ministers. He relates that one of the former said to him, on the 12th 
of August ; " You are lost in the study of outward forms, mere worldly 
canities ; You are a baby, a mere baby, he said in English." 



THE ENS. 



&!)£ |Jnritan0 emir %ir flrinripte*. 

BY REV. EDWIN HALL. 

PUBLISHED BY BAKER & SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS- 

From the New York Observer. 
The Puritans and their Principles. By Edwin 

Hall. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1846. 

Mr. Hall is the able pastor of the Congregational 
Church, in Norwalk, Ct. He writes with vigor, and in 
the midst of all his disquisitions, does not fail to sustain 
the interest of the reader. The work before us is the 
fruit of much research and thought, and will stand, in 
our opinion, as a noble defence of the character and prin- 
ciples of men whose monument is civil and religious 
liberty in the earth. 

This volume is richly worthy of a place in the library 
of every college, and of every man who wishes to under- 
stand the true greatness of the Puritans. We presume 
that it will be very generally sought after and extensively 
read. 

From the N. Y. Evening Express. 
They set forth the causes which brought the Pilgrims 
to these shores, their principles, and vindicate them from 
the aspersions which have been cast upon them. The 
subject is one of the greatest interest to any person who 
has any desire to know the history of his own country, 
and to be acquainted with the principles and sufferings 
of the most remarkable men that ever reached this con- 
tinent. 

From the N. Y. Tribune. 
This is an interesting work for all who in our day ad- 
here to the principles of the Puritans, or rejoice in a 
descent from the noble stock who were the champions 
of Freedom two centuries ago. 



2 PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. 

From the New Haven Courier. 

The design of the work is to set forth the causes 
which brought the Pilgrims to these shores ; to exhibit 
their principles ; to show what these principles are worth, 
and what it cost to maintain them} to vindicate the 
character of the Puritans from the aspersions which, 
have been cast upon them, and to show the Puritanic 
system of Church Polity,— as distinguished from the 
Prelatic, — broadly and solidly based on the word of God ; 
inseparable from religious Purity and Religious Free- 
dom ; and of immense permanent importance to the best 
interests of mankind. 

The publication is intended to bring together such his- 
torical information concerning the Puritans, as is now 
scattered through many volumes, and cannot be obtained 
but with much labor and research, and an outlay beyond 
the means of ordinary readers. 

From the N. Y Commercial Advertiser. 
The author enters with considerable minuteness into 
English ecclesiastical history prior to the persecutions of 
the Puritans, reviews the events which more immediately 
led to their emigration to this country, traces the effects 
of that step on the institutions and religious character of 
the people of both continents, and then enters into an ana- 
lysis of both prelatical and Puritanical church polity, and 
warmly and eloquently defends the latter. The style of the 
work is vigorous and clothes a subject on which much 
has been already written with new attractions, combining 
succinctness of historical detail with elegance of diction. 

From the N. Y. Courier fy Enquirer. 
Puritans and their Principles is the title of a very hand- 
some octavo volume, by Edwin Hall, which has just 
been published by ^Messrs. Baker & Scribner, at *145 
Nassau street. Its purpose is to enable the public to 
judge concerning the character and history of the Puri- 
tans, which, as he contends, are now soperseveringly and 
so violently assailed ; and he has discharged the labori- 
ous task with great zeal and ability. He says the ut- 
most pains have been taken to caricature the principles, 
and to blacken the history of the Puritans ; and as an 
evidence of this he cites the fact that very many persons 
at the present day believe that the famous code entitled 
the " Blue Laws of Connecticut," once actually had a 



PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. 3 

place among the statutes of that colony ;— whereas, in 
point of fact, they were the work of a Tory clergyman, 
and written expressly to blacken the character of the 
rebel colonists. 

The volume exhibits proof of the industry and zeal of 
the author, no less than of his ability and devotion to the 
principles in defence of which he writes. As to the cor- 
rectness of these principles, of course, we are not called 
upon to pronounce any judgment ; but all who are inter- 
ested in the subject, as indeed nearly all intelligent per- 
sons must of necessity be, may rely upon finding in this 
volume much matter, of fact and of argument, that will 
essentially guide their investigations. 

The work is printed in very handsome style, and re- 
flects great credit upon the newly established house by 
which it is published. 

From the New England Puritan. 
This is a neatly printed octavo, of between 400 and 
500 pages, from the pen of one who has proved himself a 
master of his subject. It gives the history of the Puri- 
tans, embracing the most of its material and interesting 
facts ; and also makes these facts subserve a defence of 
the character and principles of our ancestors. The work 
is ably and thoroughly executed, and it ought to furnish 
a part of the library of every descendant of the Puritans. 

From the N. Y. Christian Intelligencer. 

This is a beautiful octavo, of over 400 pp., handsomely 
printed. As it has but just reached us, we have given it, 
as yet, only a cursory examination. We regard it as a 
very valuable book. It contains a large amount of im- 
portant historical matter, in a condensed form ; precious 
under all circumstances, but especially useful in our 
times, when both Scripture and history are studiously 
distorted to prove the inventions of men superior in ex- 
cellence to the institutions of God. 

The book shows the causes which brought the Pil- 
grims to our shores; exhibits their principles ; vindicates 
their character from unjust aspersions; and states their 
system of church polity, as distinguished from Prelacy. 
It enters into the history of the Puritans and their times ; 
traces their progress from the discovery of one important 
principle to another ; exhibits them in their sufferings, 
wanderings, and landing on the margin of this wilder- 



4 PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. 

ness. The claims of Prelacy the author subjects to the 
severe test of the Bible, reason and history. It treats 
historically of England, before the times of WicklifFe ; of 
WicklifFe and his times ; of the reign of Henry VIII. ; of 
Edward, Mary and Elizabeth ; of the conflict of princi- 
ple ; of Puritan sufferings ; of the judicious Hooker ; of 
James I, and the going to Holland ; of the voyage to 
America ; of the Pilgrims at Plymouth ; of the storm 
gathering in England; Charles L; Archbishop Laud; 
founding of the Puritan churches ; rise of the civil war ; 
the Rule and Judge of Faith ; on the alleged right to im- 
pose liturgies and ceremonies ; on schism ; the Church, 
its officers, discipline; Episcopacy; Apostolic succes- 
sion, &c, 

irom the Presbyterian. 
The author presents, in his advertisement, a summary 
of his designs in this publication, which are " to set forth 
the causes which brought the Pilgrims to these shores ; 
to exhibit their principles ; to show what these princi- 
ples are worth, and what it cost to maintain them ; to 
vindicate the character of the Puritans from the asper- 
sions which have been cast upon them, and to show the 
Puritanic system of church polity, as distinguished from 
the Prelatic." All this is accomplished with both zeal 
and knowledge, and the whole narrative, extending back 
to the early times of the Puritans, and embracing a most 
important period of ecclesiastical history, is full ot ab- 
sorbing interest, not merely to the descendants of the 
Pilgrims, but to every American Christian. We have 
met with no work, which, to our mind, presents so satis- 
factory, and yet succinct a history B of the times and events 
to which it refers. 

From the N. Y. Baptist Recorder. 
The work of Mr. Hall was undertaken con amore, — his 
love of the Puritans is deep and unbounded. He has col- 
lected his facts from an extended course of reading, and 
expressed his thoughts in a style whjch, if not brilliant, 
is lucid and earnest. We hail with' much pleasure all 
such contributions to our Historical Literature. We 
hope those who have read Dr. Coit w r ill read Mr. Hall. 
Their conclusion will be that though the Puritans were 
mortal, and are justly chargeable with many inconsis- 
tencies and errors, they were still a noble race, the trace 
of whose influence is found in the best institutions of the 
world. 



PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. 5 

From the N. Y. Evening Post. 

The object of the work, as he states in the preface, is 
to set forth the causes which led .the Pilgrims to estab- 
lish themselves on this continent, to exhibit the. nature 
and value of their principles, and show the sacrifices at 
w 7 hich they were maintained, to defend their character 
against the attacks levelled against it, and to vindicate 
the puritanic system of Chuich Polity. 

The work is not historical merely, but in a good 
measure controversial, and the author wields the wea- 
pons of controversy with no little dexterity and vigor. 
The Puritans were a class of peculiarly strong and decid- 
ed character — a character which impressed itself upon 
the age in which they arose, and the influence of which 
yet survives. The author is a warm admirer of this 
class, and defends their memory with zeal. He takes oc- 
casion to discuss the claims of prelacy at much length, 
not only in its historical but in its other aspects. We 
have no doubt that the work will be favorably received by 
the large religious denomination to which the author 
belongs. 

From the Albany American Citizen. 
"We cannot forbear to express our conviction that it is 
a, work of great merit, and has no common claims, espe- 
cially upon the regard of those who have the blood of the 
Purttans flowing in their veins. Its historical details 
evince the most diligent research, and its vigorous and 
masterly discussion of important principles, shows a ju- 
dicious, discriminating, and thoroughly trained mind. As 
the subjects of which it treats, have, to a great extent, a 
controversial bearing, it cannot be expected, that all will 
judge in the same manner of the merits of the book, but 
we think all who possess ordinary candor must agree 
that it is written with no common ability, and contains a 
great amount of useful information. 

From the Hartford Christian Secretary. 
After an Introduction, containing a glance at the con- 
dition of England before the days of Wicldiffe, we are 
presented with a history of Wickliffe and his times, the 
reign of Henry VIIL, and the rise of the Puritans, from 
whence we trace them in their conflicts, visit them in 
their prisons, follow them in their wanderings, and come 
with them to their first rude dwellings in the Ameri- 
can Wilderness. We behold the foundation here rising 



6 PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. 

under their hands, until the wilderness became transform- 
ed into a fair and fruitful field. The principles of these 
noble men are exhibited and explained. The matter of 
Church Polity is discussed, and the claims of Prelacy are 
brought to the test of reason, of history, and of the word 
of God. 

From the Christian Intelligencer. 
We venerate the character and the principles of the 
Puritans of New England. Their history we have long 
since regarded* as one of the most important triumphs of 
conscience and truth our world has seen. Our country 
will never cease to feel the blessed influence of their 
faith and principles; and we rejoice in the conviction, 
which is more and more confirmed by every year's obser- 
vation, that the Puritan theology will spread itself 
widely over our land, and especially on the Sacramental 
question, will be the prevailing view of American 
Christians. We read with interest, accordingly, the ac- 
counts of the Pilgrim Celebrations, year after year, and 
wonder not that such enthusiasm should be manifested 
by those who claim lineal descent from the Pilgrim 
Fathers. That some things occur in connection with 
these occasions, which look very unlike the Puritans, it 
is mortifying to see. There have recently been some sad 
incongruities enacted. What, for instance, has fiddling 
and dancing and carousal, and all the paraphernalia of 
the ball-room, to do with Puritanism? If one of the 
good old Puritans should rise from his rest, and come to 
the door of a Pilgrims' ball — would he not more readily 
fancy that the sons of the Cavaliers were exulting in the 
riddance of them, than that the sons of the Pilgrims were 
celebrating the holy triumphs of a self-denying piety ? 
There is, to our minds, very much that is wrong here. 
And then, how comes it that Unitarianism is so ardent in 
the Pilgrim Celebration ? What fellowship has the 
Puritan system with Unitarianism ? We were inclined 
to ask, where, on the last Pilgrim Anniversary, were the 
Orthodox ministers — the men who occupy the Puritan 
posts — of Boston? Have they given all into other 
hands — or do they seek other modes of showing their 
regard for the principles of their fathers, which they 
deem preferable to the formality of uncovering their 
heads as they pass the spot of hallowed memory ? If 
there is any anniversary which should be kept with truly 
religious servicej it is this; and every proper means 



PttRITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. ( 7 

should be employed, that the descendants of the Puritans 
should know in detail their fathers' history, and the prin- 
ciples for which they suffered. 

In this view, Mr. Hall of Norwalk has done good ser- 
vice — but his work, in its benefits, goes very far beyond 
this. We noticed his book briefly, a few weeks ago, and 
now, after a careful reading, are prepared to speak more 
decidedly concerning it. We know of no work, which, 
in the same compass, gives so clear and satisfactory a 
view of the origin and progress of the principles of Pu- 
ritanism. There are evidences of careful and patient re- 
search, and a comparison of the best authorities, in every 
chapter. The picture of the Laudean policy is one that 
has its counterpart only under the bloody Mary, or on the 
opposite side of the channel. We hope to be able to give 
the whole of this, that our readers may know more of 
the man, whose High Church views Puseyism sympa- 
thizes in, and whose execution it celebrates as martyr- 
dom. The history of the successive colonies to New 
England is given with peculiar distinctness — and from 
the reading of it, we have derived a clearer knowledge of 
the several localities occupied. The style of Mr. Hall is 
vigorous, and his whole treatment of his subject manly. 
Our country congregations cannot fail of being well in- 
formed, with such courses of lectures as these. 

As this work has grown out of the late outbreak of 
Prelatic exclusiveness— and especially in Connecticut — 
the author goes into the examination of the peculiar no- 
tions of Episcopacy. The controversy has called out 
several able works, and though this appears last, it loses 
nothing in interest, and is anticipated by nothing which 
has been published. In the chapters embraced in this 
part of the volume, there is a series of original and con- 
clusive reasoning. A certain Mr. Chapin, as well as 
Bishop Browneil, comes in for his share of the showing 
up. ' In the concluding chapter, a curtain is drawn, and 
we are furnished with a view of some things worth see- 
ing — note, for instance, the topics — " Episcopacy and Re- 
publicanism" — " Episcopacy in the American Revolu- 
tion" — " Reproaches against the Puritans" — " The Table 
Turned." On the subject presented in this last topic, 
Dr. Phillips was led to say something in his late dedica- 
tion sermon 5 the detail here given is amazing. 

Mr. Hall closes his volume with a review of Dr. Coit 
on Puritanism, and exposes him fully. Every man of 
New England origin, who possesses any of the Puritan 



8 PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES. 

spirit, we should think, would make himself acquainted 
with this book. We commend it to every reader. 

After these remarks concerning the book in general, 
there is one circumstance to which we would call special 
attention. Who has not heard of " the Blue Laws of 
Connecticut"— who has not felt aggrieved that good men 
should be concerned in their enactment ? Behold, they 
are an absolute fiction — a mere Munchausen affair — ac- 
cording to Mr, Hall, the work of a Rev. Mr. Peters, an 
Episcopal clergyman, a Tory, who abandoned our coun- 
try at the opening of the Revolution, and fled to Eng- 
land. Mr. Hall very justly expresses his amazement, 
that this man's fabrications should be brought out in a 
recent impression, with special commendation. 



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